Manhattan is an island. No matter how you slice it you need bridges or tunnels to get to the airport. I have lived an worked in the NY Metro area for over 30 years now and it is always a crap shoot getting off the island no matter where you are headed. In the years since Mr. Bloomberg was the mayor traffic has gotten much worst because it was his goal to make more people take mass transit so they put in pedestrian malls, closed streets, made some streets east/west thru streets--no turns between 8th and 3rd avenues. Traffic is traffic and it is likely to be bad no matter which way you go. Add some rain and it gets worse quickly.