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| Case Against LGA Link (1334750) | |||
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Case Against LGA Link |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Tue Jan 20 22:13:03 2015, in response to Air Train Proposed To Connect (7) Line With LaGuardia Airport; video, posted by gOlD_12tH on Tue Jan 20 11:59:31 2015. Any capital project should pay for itself either by decreasing operating costs or by increasing the value of the real estate tax base. A project that does neither fits perfectly with such recent gems as South Ferry, Fulton Transportation Center, Path WTC Terminal, East Side Access and the SAS. There are projects like the extension to the West Side that should pay for themselves by increased real estate taxes.Any rail link to LaGuardia will not bring any additional business to NYC. LaGuardia is already maxed out as an airport. A "convenient" rail link won't increase its traffic. Not having a rail link will not decrease its traffic. The number of passengers benefiting from an LGA rail link will be far fewer than those benefiting from extending the subway network to undeserved areas. The introduction of direct subway service to such areas means increased density to these areas and increased real estate valuations. Also, buses are more expensive to operate than subways. Substituting subways for existing buses will also reduce overall operating costs. NYC has the density that allows subways economies to scale to fill subway trains. That's not true for all areas. One exception is airports. The demand for transportation to/from airports is dictated by the number of travelers not by population density. NYC has the biggest population and density but JFK and LGA are not the busiest airports. Let's consider JFK's AirTrain. The number of passengers using AirTrain in 2013 was 6,002,835 paying passengers. This includes arriving and departing passengers. It is necessary to divide this figure by 2 to compare its use to a subway station. This gives a "turnstile count" of 3,001,418. If JFK were a subway station it would have ranked 165th in the NYC system, it would have placed between 46th St (M/R) and 96th St (B/C) stations. Both are local stations; neither station is considered to be heavily used. JFK ranked 6th in passenger volume with 50,423,765 passengers. Chicago's O'Hare ranked 2nd with 66,883,271 passengers. LGA ranked 20th with 26,722,183 passenger. Chicago's Midway Airport ranked 24th with 20,491,422 passengers. AirTrain's equivalent station use corresponded to 5.95% of JFK's passengers. O'Hare's CTA turnstiles counted 3,483,126 passengers. This corresponds to 5.21% of O'Hare's passenger total. Midway's CTA turnstiles counted 2,783,645 passengers. This corresponds to 13.6% of Midway's passenger total. One might expect a rail link to LGA to 4,000,000 turnstile counts, assuming 15% of LGA's passenger total. This would place a LGA station 120th on the list of busy stations. It fall lie between the 59th St Bklyn (N/R) and Rockaway Pkwy (L) stations. Neither station is particularly distinctive, except to subway buffs. Increased air travel will not increase the turnstile count. LGA is maxed out in terms of the number and size of the planes it can accommodate. It will remain a niche airport. Despite its reputation for being a "business" airport, only 28.9% of LGA's departing passengers list any business as the trip's purpose. JFK's figure is 18%. This means that 71.1% and 82% of departing passengers from LGA and JFK are leaving only for leisure. Despite JFK's AirTrain only 25.2% of departing passengers use their personal car vs. 31.3% for JFK. Taxis are favored by 44% LGA's passengers vs. only 27.3% for JFK. Despite the its lack of quick public transit, average travel time to LGA is 41 minutes vs. 62 minutes for JFK. The projected transit time for the new rail link is 30 minutes for a net savings of 11 minutes. |
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