Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
So, you basically want a very expensive express train to aid you in doing LGA-JFK/JFK-LGA transfers? It's not like real estate and construction's particularly cheap in NYC, is it, so you're probably talking a lot of money... and if it's an express train, it's not going to be able to serve the other regions, so limited ridership and use.
It would probably be cheaper just to run a taxpayer-funded daily helicopter service provided free to intra-airport transfers... and probably less of a white elephant waste of taxpayer money.
OTOH, actually having LGA hooked up into the NYC mass transit system (into places like Manhattan)... that would be nice.
The plan is to construct an Air Train between LGA and the Citifield 7 train station. Logistically the is the easiest routing - you cross over the Citifield parking lot and run parallel to the Grand Central Parkway. Probably $500 million for about a mile of track. The alternate is to connect LGA with the Astoria line subway station above the Grand Central Parkway. Logistically more difficult - the area surrounding the subway station is very built up and land acquisition / condemnation will be time consuming and expensive. Further, the train, if above ground will likely be raised above the median like the Air Train to JFK as it runs above the Van Wyck Expressway. The trouble is that the track at LGA will be elevated in an area that crosses Runway 4 approach which begins perhaps 100 feet from the parkway. So by default the station will be next to Citifield.