cestmoi123

1. Comparing "bread and batteries" with a luxury product like black car service from an airport, which has MANY substitutes, ranging from Lyft to Dial 7 to taxis to the Airtrain to the bus, etc. etc., isn't apples to oranges, it's "apples to equestrian marble statues."
2. That's a dumb law, and shouldn't be on the books in the first place.

themicah

I had my first experience with the off-site car service lot on Friday evening and I think waiting for a taxi would have been greatly preferable to the car service shuttle.

On the good side, they seem to be throwing resources at this to try to make it work. There were plenty of buses--at least 2-3 buses at the curb at any given time, and they were departing as fast as they filled up. And there is a lot of staff, with folks inside and outside the terminal directing passengers to the shuttles, and lots of staff in the car service pickup lot itself trying to manage the hordes of angry passengers and drivers. Traffic now flows smoothly at the arrivals level at the terminal, since the only vehicles are buses and private cars. Apparently ALL e-hail and pre-arranged pickups by car services are now being forced to go to the off-site lot. One worker told me he's encountered some very angry celebrities who didn't want to take a bus to their limo.

On the bad side, the whole thing is an enormous pain in the butt and the car service lot isn't big enough to handle the volume of passenger and vehicular traffic it's getting. My family of five (including three tired little kids) and all our luggage had to haul from the terminal to the bus, load onto the bus, load off of the bus, and then haul from the bus to the area of the lot where we could actually wait for pickup (since you're not allowed to wait where the buses drop off). As I wasn't sure how long the trip to the lot would take, I didn't hit "request" in the Lyft app until we got to the pickup area, and it took forever for the driver to get to us from the staging lot near Rikers where he said he was forced to wait. According to the driver the vast majority of that time was due to congestion from all the drivers trying to squeeze into the relatively small area they've allotted for pickups (2/3 of which was occupied by drivers who were parked there waiting for their passengers to show up). This was our driver's first time picking up at the new off-site lot, and he said he would try to avoid doing LGA pickups for the foreseeable future. It took roughly 40 minutes from the time we left the terminal to when we actually got into our car.

This thing makes sense on paper and should be a boon to those who get picked up by family or who take public transit. And it's a relatively minor inconvenience if you're able-bodied, you time your car request well, and you don't have a lot of luggage.

But for a family like mine, or for elderly people who can't lift their luggage onto the bus's luggage racks, it makes LGA look a lot less attractive. And I have no clue how they deal with people with serious physical disabilities.

cestmoi123

I bet Delta thinks this development is just about the best thing ever.

salut0

Arriving with a stroller and lots of luggage we got the message on the Uber app and decided to take a taxi instead, assuming the shuttles weren't stroller friendly (I see above it was standing room only so no hope of not having to fold a stroller let alone even having step free access to wheel the stroller on to the bus itself!)

Taxi rank lady pulled us out of the line, having seen the baby, and let us wait at the front by the side. Eventually we got a modern enough taxi (second try!) into which we could install the LATCH capable car seat. Lucky we hadn't banked on using Uber Family!

salut0

Exactly what we did, as described. No way I'd take an Uber or Lyft from LGA while this is going on.

cestmoi123

Remember, this only affects the non-Delta carriers that use terminal B. No change if you're on Delta.

zip10001

as I usually fly AC or AA to YYZ, I am thinking of walking (carry-on only) from Terminal B to Terminal C and pick up a car for hire from there.

Any thought?
Is the walk-away between terminals still accessible
during the 'redevelopment'?

cestmoi123

My recollection from upthread is that it's closed, but others may have more current information.

jordyn

Wow, what a disaster this is.

Last night, the taxi line was hundreds of people long, stretching from the far end of Terminal B (beyond the D concourse) back beyond the closed taxi stand in the middle of the terminal (between B and C concourses). Not waiting for that! But this new car service lot is a debacle as well, totally unable to accommodate the number of cars and people trying to use it. The remote situation would actually work much better for yellow cabs since there's no need to match people to specific cars, but I'm sure the taxi lobby will make sure that never happens.

My solution is going to be to avoid arriving into LGA whenever possible for the foreseeable future. I don't like Newark, but it's hilarious that the reaction to people calling LGA a third world airport is to actually turn it into one.

themicah

Soooooo true.

ijgordon

Yikes. When is this trial over?!?

nrr

With "public works" projects, whatever the projected finishing date ADD 5 years.

nrr

How are MTA busses being accommodated? I assume they get "preferential" access to curb lanes.

Blumie

The current set up for cars-for-hire is a month-long trial. Not sure when that's supposed to end.

It is, of course, easy to be jaded about public works projects, but we all love to complain about the state of LaGuardia and complain about the construction, even though we're all anxious and excited to have a new airport. Think about what a logistical nightmare it is to build a brand new airport on top of an existing airport that has to keep operating the entire time. Try that at home.

nrr

HOOVER DAM (not an airport) was a gov't project, but was built by private companies, was completed 2 years ahead of schedule AND under-budget.