Originally Posted by
Tower18
Are they BUILDING 9 new gates, or gaining access to 9 new gates? If they're building 9 new gates, but are gaining access to more than that, it may balance out. IIRC, Terminal 4 is fairly lightly used, comparatively. It probably has spare capacity in terms of actual number of planes that can come in and out of the existing gates if a domestic airline was to move in. Plus I think they get a couple gates back at T2 by removing the RJ tunnels. In fact, this press release here says that the move will have a net zero effect on gates:
http://www.panynj.gov/press-room/pre...adLine_id=1309
Actually, the press release doesn't say that. It is very clear they will be losing gates. There is no way to demolish 18 gates and build 9 and somehow have the same number of gates. There will be fewer gates.
What? It's like 1/3 mile at most, which is a 5-6 minute walk for most people, 10 minutes for the slow walkers. And there will be a moving walkway, reducing that even further.
Measure it on a map. If you could magically walk out of Gate 24 in T2, walk across the Tarmac to the closest area of construction at T4, it is over 2000 feet (or about 0.4 miles). Unfortunately the walkway+walk through the terminal to the gate will be about 5000+ feet (about 1 mile). Not terrible, I realize. For comparison it is longer than the length of the terminal at DTW which is about 4800 feet. It will be a LOOOONG walk (or a slow ride on the moving sidewalks). And this will be Delta's glorious hub at JFK at a mere cost of almost $2 billion. JetBlue built T5 (ALL OF IT....ticketing, security, 27 gates, baggage claim) for less than half that.
I can't speak for anyone else, but given that I can use the SkyPriority lanes at T2, entering T2 via T3 would NEVER, EVER be my plan, or anything I'd call decent. It's ridiculous that you have to walk outside, but it's not THAT far of a walk. Any anyway, you'll still have decent access to T2 via T4's interior station and the 5 minute walkway.
Of the dozens of times I have gone through T2, I have never waited more than a minute or two to get to TSA when coming from the AirTrain. Right now through T4, it's 20 minutes on a good day.