This is such a play on words. The funding from Airtrain comes from taxes on people flying through Kennedy and from the Port Authority.

While it may not be state or federal tax money, it's a tax. I have to pay every time I ticket a flight through kennedy so they can build the airtrain, though I will probably never use it. Every time I cross a bridge or take a tunnel into New York, the port authority keeps a bit of my money and pays for the airtrain on it.

Sure they aren't calling it a tax, but that's what it is, they collect money from me almost daily to build this boondogle, and I don't have a say to allow my money to go there or not.

To me, that's a tax.



[This message has been edited by cordelli (edited Dec 21, 2003).]

Crap, I didn't know the AirTrain was $5. I was planning to use it on my JFK trip next week. Having taken the Q10 bus before for $2 (a hefty 1/3 price increase from last year I might add), I suppose I will once again take the Q10 bus (or Q3, whichever shows up first).

If I were actually going to downtown Jamaica, $5 might be worth it. But paying $5 for the privilege of entering a subway station from the outside? At the very least the $5 should give you a free transfer to the subway (after all, you can pay the $5 by Metrocard, so it's not that hard to implement). Take the Q10 or Q3 bus and you pay $3 less to start and you get a free transfer to the subway!

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"The minute a Bundy has good luck he immediately starts building up an equal amount of bad luck." -- Al Bundy, Married With Children

[This message has been edited by JS (edited Dec 21, 2003).]

Remember, though, that you have to have a Metrocard to get the free transfer from the bus to the subway (or from the subway to the bus). The transfers issued on the bus when paying a cash fare are good only for another bus. There are some places at JFK and LGA that sell Metrocards.

So, how is the JFK-only AirTrain working out? Is it reliable? Is it a true loop in that you can circle around the terminals withou going anywhere (like you wanted a grand tour of the terminals...)? How much of a hassle is it to get to and from the stops at the various terminals? I'll be transitting through JFK from one terminal to another terminal next month and want to know what to expect.

JFK-only AirTrain working out? Is it reliable? Is it a true loop in that you can
circle around the terminals withou going anywhere (like you wanted a grand tour of the
terminals...)?

there's three routes:

1. from Jamaica to JFK, around the terminals
and back to Jamaica.

2. from Howard's to JFK, around the terminals
the same way and to Howard's.

3. Around the terminals in the opposite
direction from 1 and 2.

Looks like you could ride any part all day if
you don't exit the system.

eg arrive at Jamaica, exit train, board train
back to JFK.

I wouldn't recommend you actually try to use
it as a hotel and sleep on the train floor as
part of cheap BKK-JFK-BKK mileage run.

As for reliable:
So far, so good.


[This message has been edited by squid (edited Dec 21, 2003).]

Gee, and I thought I was the only one. When I tell people I would rather fly out of EWR than, say, LGA, they look at me like I've got two heads. Of course, these are all people who only fly once or twice a year and when they do have a trip coming up they say, "Oh, I'll just call so-and-so to take me to the airport."

For those of us who travel more often and don't have a cadre of friends and relatives waiting anxiously by the phone for us to call and ask for a ride to the airport, dropping $70-80 on every trip for a "shuttle" service gets tiresome pretty fast. Spending twice that amount for a car service when I'm the only passenger gets tiresome even faster - what an extravagant waste just because there's no other way for me to make a 9 AM flight without leaving the night before!

I actually had a shuttle van driver tell me once that he didn't fear much loss of business due to AirTrain because so many of his customers were business travelers who don't want to fuss with rail schedules. That's fine - I'll be two stops from home on the LIRR before their shuttle van even leaves the airport.

Because AirTrain doesn't go all the way to Manhattan it must necessarily be classified as a half-baked solution. This I understand. But we cannot ignore the fact that AirTrain has opened up low-cost, reasonably fast travel to JFK to scores of communities that didn't have such options before. (Incidentally, that includes large parts of Queens from which it just isn't easy to get to the A train. Getting to JFK from the Bronx will, of course, continue to be a nightmare.)

[This message has been edited by Factotum (edited Dec 21, 2003).]

Time will tell.

Why isn't there a seemless transition at Jamaica from the LIRR? If they had done that, this thing would be fantastic. Why can't the Airtrain be on LIRR tracks and then go into and out of Manhattan?

Since these "planners" decided not to connect the tracks, where are the escalators to ease the transition from one track to the other? If you think women like myself are going to carry luggage AND laptops up steps in Jamaica-----you got another thing coming.

Why not charge $10-20 but facilitate one train between JFK and Manhattan?

If there must be a changing of the trains at the Jamaica LIRR, why not install escalators to facilitate easy movement? I'd pay $10-15 to go from Penn to JFK if I knew I could change trains easily via escalators.

Lastly, Jamaica is a hole, a pit. The E station which is around the corner from the Jamaica station is disgusting. My bf lives on LI so often I will take the E to Jamaica to hop the train to LI as it's easier than taking the subway from my Manhattan apt to Penn. So I'm at Jamaica station (both Sutphin Ave for the E) and the LIRR quite regularly. I would NEVER go there with luggage and a PC (why not wear a sign on my head which read "target, I've got money on me"). Even if all I had were a briefcase, I'd only go during the day. Even on weekend mornings, Jamaica is desolate and shady. So now they think people (especially tourists) are going to want to go there? Without the easements of easy transfer to higher platforms which come with escalators? Again time will tell. This will be a financial disaster until they address the huge shortcomings.

I'm sure that driver is right. For Long Islanders, Airtrain could work very well for them assuming they don't mind carrying their luggage up and down stairs. If you have the strength, it will work well for you. But for the business traveller who travels often, I'm not going to injure myself because the PA didn't think that I may not want to carry heavy luggage up and down stairs. I will still take the Express Bus.

I used the AirTrain for the first time last week, to connect from the BA terminal to the DL terminal, and I thought it was awesome compared to the interterminal bus. The walk to the train from the terminal is very short, so even with luggage it is not that big of a deal. I just missed a train as I got off the elevator, but only had to wait about 90 seconds for another train to arrive. The whole process could not have been easier.

I'm pretty sure that I will use the AirTrain next time I have to go from JFK to Manhattan, connecting to either the LIRR or the E train (my NY office is at 53rd and 3rd, first Manhattan stop on the E train). It may not save a lot (or any) time vs. a taxi, but for me it would be a lot more relaxing. I totally stress out sitting in the traffic on the Van Wyck. (When I was in London last week, I took the LHR Express to the tube for the same reason; it saved no time, but it was much more relaxing.)

My gripe with Airtrain is the same as Analise: this thing does not go into Manhattan. It was well known by all involved that if a train is not a "one-seat" option, people choose other transportation methods. I have no idea why they even bothered with the Airtrain.

What should be done is an extension of the A train directly into the terminals. And like in the 1980s, a truly 'express'
A train that makes only a couple of stops between downtown Manhattan and JFK. I am certain this could have been accomplished for $2 billion, including express tubes around the current A local stops. Then the city could run that train every 5 minutes during the day: it would enhance service on the A line and would provide a 30-minute link for the entire island of Manhattan to JFK.

(It has taken me up to 1.5 hours on the A train from Midtown to terminal check-in with the old bus service from Howard Beach).

When I went to Jamaica to take a look at it yesterday, I was appalled about the lack of escalators linking the LIRR to Airtrain. You're never going to sell me on the ease with the E train if I'm carrying luggage but if they put in the means to get from one train to the other without steps, the Airtrain will be a benefit to anyone who must go to and from Manhattan.

Oh no, kind sir, that's a FEE!

- HF

DC is one of the best layouts for rail connection in the US. (Though it's even nicer that you can walk right down to Crystal City!) I also liked the location of St. Louis' light rail. They have a nice way of gouging infrequent riders - tickets are 3 times as expensive if you buy them at the airport. But you can use 10 ride and other tickets you buy elsewhere. The Orange Line at MDW is a great recent airport train Quick service to downtown, plenty of other connections, and all on the same transit fare system. (But you have to walk through the parking garage to get there!) That said, I take a bus from my house to MDW.

Boston is downright annoying. A bus to the train, and then almost surely a transfer to another train. And another one if you want to get to south station - and this to go just a few miles. At least you can do all that for a buck.
Charging $5 for the Airtrain at JFK seems excessive. Time will tell if things pan out. A train will always bring out more riders, but it would be nice to have something like CDG or Zurich where trains actually go somewhere directly from the Airport.

I used to do BART->SFO, Caltrain->SFO, and Amtrak->SFO and Samtrans->SFO. BART->SFO is now more direct... sometimes. However, on weekends, it still requires a transfer, not much better than the old BART->Samtrans transfer. Caltrain to SFO got a lot more expensive and inconvenient. The free shuttles timed to meet the train are replaced by BART running every 20 minutes. Amtrak SFO went from train->BUS to (on weekends) Amtrak->Bart->Bart->Bart. Luckily the Samtrans SFO bus is still there!

A couple of years ago I attended a briefing by a Port Authority official on the planning for the Airtrain. He said the LIRR and subway could not be routed around the JFK terminals because of the steep grades needed to get over and under the various runways, roads, etc., and that tunneling around the airport would be inefficient and uneconomical because of the high water table. I thought this was all too self-serving, since the PA had already decided on the route (Van Wyck Blvd., rather than the disused LIRR Rockaways branch!!) and construction of the Airtrain. It was obvious that NIMBY's, restrictions on using airport taxes and somebody's idea of what a modern rail connection to the airport should look like (or corruption?) made any logical argument futile. I wonder what Pataki and Bloomberg were talking about when they recently, repeatedly mentioned a future one-seat rail connection from Manhattan to JFK. Have they discussed this with the PA? How would they feel about competition with their limited, clumsy Airtrain?

[This message has been edited by Track (edited Dec 22, 2003).]

For Pataki and Bloomberg, I'm sure it was all talk. The NIMBY thing plus other restrictions I'm sure were at play. This does not explain why the PA could not make the Jamaica transition from the LIRR to Airtrain more feasible to travellers, especially for business travellers who are the PA's best customers. If they had installed escalators in between platforms, this would be acceptable to those travelling from Penn on the LIRR. If they can't do a door-to-door Manhattan to JFK service, at least facilitate an easy connection. Escalators would have done the trick. Even Secaucus Junction has escalators! Why not seedy Jamaica?