<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Factotum:
The Port Authority's 35-minute figure assumes:- Your home or office is inside Penn Station.
- Right when you stop to think, "Gee, I should head to the airport," the LIRR train will be there waiting for you, as if by magic.
- When the train arrives in Jamaica you will have had the foresight to be in the car whose doors open right in front of the stairs to the mezzanine.
- You continue your streak of astonishing scheduling coincidences by walking straight over to AirTrain and getting on just as the doors are ready to close.
- You are flying out of Terminal One.
An hour is a more reasonable amount of time to budget for the trip. That's still competitive with a cab, especially during rush hour.</font>
I agree completely. In fact, my one-hour trip began at Penn Station, and things went as well as could be expected, except the slight wait for the AirTrain at Jamaica Station (although even had the AitTrain come promptly, it still would have been a 50-minute trip). But even at an hour, I am fairly certain I could not have beaten that time by hopping in a cab at Penn Station (if I could have found one at 5pm).