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| Re: Diagrams Re: Air Train question (582068) | |||
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Re: Diagrams Re: Air Train question |
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Posted by Charles G on Thu Mar 6 22:38:49 2008, in response to Re: Diagrams Re: Air Train question, posted by Terrapin Station on Thu Mar 6 14:00:36 2008. Of course it is more direct. That was my point. All the most direct routes to the airport have no access fees, while the less direct route, the A, has an access fee.And my point is that the more direct the route is, the more it will cost. I don't worry about who gets the fee or what the fee is called. A dollar out is a dollar out. No. I would need to explore other options to encourage Lefferts. But charging the subway riders should not a valid option! Hey, at least you're seeing my point now about why Howard Beach residents might not want a free airtrain in their neighborhood. To some extent, a somewhat similar argument can be made that the Howard Beach subway station -- as a local stop with 20 minute service for much of the day -- would be overwhelmed by passengers if the AirTrain were free. For that reason they need to charge an additional fee so that passengers don't trade a few extra minutes to go via HB in order to save some $$. Having an equal fare from each entry point allows the TA to effectively guide more people towards Jamaica which has more capacity and can better handle the crowds. (I just thought that one up, and it's 3:30 AM where I am, so I haven't really given a lot of thought as to whether it makes any sense -- but if anyone here cares to run it through the ringer while I sleep, knock yourselves out...) They did no such thing. According to you, they built the station just so they could collect revenue there to use elsewhere in the PANYNJ collection of properties. If that's the case, they should not have built past lefferts, and should have left a free shuttle bus from HB to Lefferts. I'm not saying that they did that. I'm saying that it may have been part of their decision making process. I don't really have any idea -- but I give them credit for likely having a reason better than "Ah F--k 'em, make the subway riders pony up a 5-spot" and am trying to speculate on what some of those reasons might be. Remember, you're trying to justify why, unlike any other airport in the country that I know of, people are being charged for the on-property circulator, and unlike any transit station in the world that I know of, people paying for parking at the station have the fare waived, while people walking up to the station have to pay a fare. That's pretty serious. A justification of "we want the revenue" is not good enough. I'm not trying to justify any such thing. I just take a bit of offense to your willingness to jump to a negative conclusion about an organization without having shown any willingness to research or consider alternatives to your own opinion. Not much offense, though. Just enough to poke around and keep the thread going. As respects people riding for free from the parking lot, you don't really know that either. Perhaps long-term parking fees at JFK include a component that is intended to represent the average fare that would be paid on the AirTrain. Something along the lines of -- "assume 1.5 persons per vehicle, so $15 per vehicle of every parking fee collected will be considered AirTrain revenue". I happen to doubt that this is the case, but unless you have a contact inside the PA you don't know that it isn't. |
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