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Critics Say It's Time To Close La Guardia Airport
HughPickens.com writes: George Haikalis writes in the NYT that last week, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey put off, yet again, deciding between two proposals for a nearly $4 billion project to rehabilitate the dilapidated Central Terminal Building at La Guardia Airport. But piling billions of taxpayer dollars into upgrading La Guardia, which has been likened to an experience "in a third world country," won't solve its fundamental problems. "It can't easily expand," says Haikalis. "Its two runways and four terminals are surrounded on three sides by water, making landing difficult and hazardous. Parking is a nightmare."
There are precedents for replacing airports close to the center city with modern, more outlying airports. Hong Kong and Denver are two examples; Berlin will soon follow suit. With the consolidation of the major United States airlines and the sluggishness in the global economy, the much larger Kennedy and Newark airports could accommodate La Guardia's passenger load, by adding more frequent service and using larger aircraft, if the F.A.A. were to lift the caps on the number of flights allowed there. Kennedy, with its two sets of parallel runways, could handle many more flights, particularly as new air-traffic control technology is introduced in the next few years. The money budgeted for the La Guardia upgrades would be better used to create a long-proposed one-ride express-rail link between Manhattan and J.F.K., by reviving a long-disused, 3.5-mile stretch of track in central Queens and completing the modernization of the terminals at Kennedy. "By avoiding the costly replacement of outmoded terminals at La Guardia and by creating a new express rail link and upgrading terminals at Kennedy, the increased economic activity could more than make up for the lost jobs," concludes Haikalis. "New York's importance to America's economy demands a first world vision to shutter this third world airport."
There are precedents for replacing airports close to the center city with modern, more outlying airports. Hong Kong and Denver are two examples; Berlin will soon follow suit. With the consolidation of the major United States airlines and the sluggishness in the global economy, the much larger Kennedy and Newark airports could accommodate La Guardia's passenger load, by adding more frequent service and using larger aircraft, if the F.A.A. were to lift the caps on the number of flights allowed there. Kennedy, with its two sets of parallel runways, could handle many more flights, particularly as new air-traffic control technology is introduced in the next few years. The money budgeted for the La Guardia upgrades would be better used to create a long-proposed one-ride express-rail link between Manhattan and J.F.K., by reviving a long-disused, 3.5-mile stretch of track in central Queens and completing the modernization of the terminals at Kennedy. "By avoiding the costly replacement of outmoded terminals at La Guardia and by creating a new express rail link and upgrading terminals at Kennedy, the increased economic activity could more than make up for the lost jobs," concludes Haikalis. "New York's importance to America's economy demands a first world vision to shutter this third world airport."
La Guardia is right next to the Triborough and at the top of the BQE. You can get to midtown via taxi in 20 minutes in heavy traffic. It takes ten minutes from the time you are off the Jetway, down the escalator, at the luggage carousel, and to the cab stand.
Granted, landing and taking off can be... exciting. One day we had a nasty tail wind, so the pilot had to gun the engines as we were making the turn onto the runway to get enough speed - something I've never seen anyone do before.
Otherwise, I'd give up useless amenities for expediency.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
It can be guaranteed that New York will choose the most expensive option, will have a budget overrun and will be 20 years late.
When you see likening to the third world country is a mere beginning of the campaign so that people would be believe that the issue is so big, so unsolvable that only a multi-billion dollar project can solve the issue. There will be proposals for floating on water airports, airports to be build on artificial islands.
For all I care, the NYC with one of the largest subway systems in the world for the last 85 years could not extend a subway link to Laguardia. I do not know what was the issue: corrupt taxicab companies or some other sinister reasons.
The issue is not Laguardia airport here, the issue is poor public transportation to certain airports, or truth the be told - absence of if, and there are many other airports in NYC metro area: Islip, Westchester, teterboro, Trenton, and so on.
In my opinion, travelers do not care about the appearance of the airports, all they want is convenient way to arrive, park or rent a car, and leave shortly. Politicians want appearance, costs be damned.
"Parking is a nightmare."
This statement implies parking is even possible.
Last time I went there to pick someone up, I drove around in circles in a holding pattern comparable to the planes themselves. "Parking" is not something that actually occurs at La Guardia.
=Smidge=
I find it far easier and more pleasant to take the train from Boston. Presumably the same holds for folks from Philly.
I'd also like to see more business travellers learn to use video conferencing instead of blowing off a few gigajoules on the theory that face-to-face is the only acceptable way to hold a meeting.
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It now costs $110 for a taxi to downtown. Yeah, rail is opening next year, 20 years after the airport. That'll make it convenient for those traveling without children, skis, disabilities, or extended-stay luggage, and whose Denver location is near a stop on Denver's rail system, which was optimized for miles of track laid rather than number of useful locations served or transit time.
It just like in Kansas City where the asshole politicians want to rebuild what is the most convenient airport (for the local traveler) of anywhere in the country. You can be at your car in 1 minute from stepping off the plane. It's not about serving the citizenry, more about leeching taxes.
As a New Yorker, I much prefer LaGuardia, and strongly disagree with calls for its closing. As a small airport, it isn't burdened with its own size in terms of processing passengers. Everything at JFK takes longer than at LGA strictly because of magnitude.
JFK is literally too big to provide efficient service to individuals. Once the check-in & security hurdle is cleared, one still has to walk nearly a mile to get to their actual gate. Once boarded, the plane has to taxi for minutes just to arrive at the runway, where you will likely have to queue for an additional wait to takeoff. As others have mentioned, I easily save at least 30 minutes by flying from LGA, when adding up travel, check-in, security, walking to the gate, taxi-ing, and runway queuing.
I would love to see these large airports replaced with multiple smaller airports. A larger percentage of the population would have an airport nearby, and average travel times would be reduced significantly. It seems to me that planners are optimizing for everything except your personal experience when they design and advocate for mega-airports.
New York's three airports, run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, made about a half a billion dollars in profit last year. Why not use that money? Oh wait, they use it to pay for loss-making operations like the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown. New York City's mass-transit system is $15 billion short of what it needs to invest over the next five years. The state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority runs permanent deficits and depends on billions of dollars each year in tax subsidies to stay afloat. Personally I feel the rates for the mass-transit system should be raised to meet the financial demands of running that service. We'd have plenty of money to resolve the airport issue, *without* needing to worry about siphoning taxpayer dollars.
Hong Kong is slightly different though. They can justify the expense of building an aritificial island to solve the hazardous approach issues with the former airport on the grounds that there simply was no other viable alternative as there was simply no way to suitably adapt the existing airport to make it safer or any preexisting alternative location. La Guardia has similar problems, but has far more alternative options than the "artificial island" approach, although its convenience to central NYC does make it a good location that makes simply closing it unattractive.
Still, the "all or nothing" solutions being proposed (close it or spending $4b renovating it) do seem a little restrictive though. Perhaps a better option would be to turn it into more of a City Airport for those actually travelling to NYC, while moving as much of the through "hub" and international traffic out to J.F.K and Newark where rapid access to NYC is much less important. You'd still need to overhaul the La Guardia terminal, but potentially on a much smaller scale, even allowing for potential future growth.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!