AirTrain

[Kris]

December 18, 2003

The Best Way to the Airport? It's a Race

By JAMES BARRON

The race was on: 42nd Street to Kennedy Airport, the old way and the new way.

The old way was to take a taxi. This required spending some cash — $50, including $3.50 for a bridge toll at $7.60 for a tip — and getting some attitude. Almost the first words the driver, Francique Smith, said when an airport-bound reporter climbed in were, "I don't like to go to the airport."

The new way was to take the subway (or the Long Island Rail Road) to the AirTrain, the $1.9 billion computer-controlled light rail system that went into service yesterday between the airport and Jamaica, Queens.

The new way was cheaper ($2 on the subway, $8 on the L.I.R.R., and nothing on the AirTrain because it was free until midnight). It was attitude-free — the AirTrain is driverless — and it beat the cab. By 12 minutes.

In a not very scientific race, three reporters and three photographers left 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue at 3 p.m. yesterday, an hour after the AirTrain opened to the public. The idea was for a reporter and a photographer to take the subway — specifically, the E train — to the AirTrain station in Jamaica. Another pair would go to Pennsylvania Station and take an L.I.R.R. train to the same AirTrain station. The third pair would hail a taxi. All three would meet at the JetBlue counter in Terminal 6 at the airport.

Heading north on Eighth Avenue, Mr. Smith, the cabdriver, pulled up to the curb as the bells from Holy Cross Church, on 42nd Street, were chiming on the hour. The windshield wipers beat time slowly as he announced the route: Right at 46th Street, left at First Avenue, right at 48th Street, then onto the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and over the Triborough Bridge. He did not want to loop slightly downtown toward the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. He did not mention the Queensboro Bridge. He figured he needed an hour and 15 minutes.

As he made that first right onto 46th Street, a Queens-bound E train lumbered into station. Five stops and nine minutes later, it was in Queens. Mr. Smith — sounding worried that he might not make it home to Brooklyn in time for a 7 p.m. appointment — still had not turned onto the F.D.R.

The reporter and photographer taking the L.I.R.R. caught a C train at 42nd Street at 3:02. It dropped them at Penn Station at 3:03. The big board over the ticket windows showed a 3:14 to Ronkonkoma that would stop in Jamaica.

So they hopped on the 3:14 to Ronkonkoma without buying a ticket — they decided the lines were too long. The conductor charged each an additional $3.25, in addition to the $4.75 fare, and they stumbled on a party.

The partyers were construction workers, who worried that the AirTrain would change their lives forever, that it would mean no more beer on the 3:14 and that the 3:14 would be a standing-room-only proposition. "This train's going to get very crowded," Jim Martin, a partyer, said. "The luggage is going to come on, and it's going to get ugly."

The train arrived at the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue station in Jamaica at 3:38. The reporter and the photographer left the construction workers and their beers, climbed a flight of stairs, turned right and boarded the AirTrain.

At 3:38, Mr. Smith's taxi was creeping across the Triborough. The meter was creeping past $15. Mr. Smith was talking about having to budget $4,000 for repairs year after year, how he had replaced the transmission four times and how, as he put it, "some drivers try to kill other drivers to get that person going to the airport."

At 3:38, the reporter and photographer who had taken subway had been in the station in Jamaica for six minutes, but because of confusing signs and a transit worker who gave them wrong directions, they ended up climbing onto the same AirTrain as the two from the L.I.R.R. and listening to Sebastian Lenelle, a Belgian exchange student give AirTrain a rave review.

"It was like we were flying," said Mr. Lenelle, who had gone to the airport — on a bus he described as "very noisy and not that clean" — to pick up his father on a flight from Brussels. Another passenger, Dan Castle, an environmental consultant from Buffalo, was all but gloating. "It's going to be nice to see all the traffic we're not in," he said.

Of course, that included Mr. Smith. At 4:13, when the reporter and photographer who had taken the L.I.R.R. walked into the JetBlue terminal (the pair from the E train got off at Terminal 7 by mistake, and lost four minutes), he was still 12 minutes away. But he was looking up at the AirTrain's elevated tracks.

"It looks pretty cool on the outside," he said.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Nora Krug, in a taxi, Campbell Robertson, on the Long Island Rail Road, and Colin Moynihan, on the subway.




METRO MATTERS

Pack Light. Not for Trip, but for AirTrain.

By JOYCE PURNICK

WHAT would a New York innovation be if it didn't generate an instant debate? Couldn't happen, as witness inaugural day of the new AirTrain, the sleek, new light rail line linking Kennedy International Airport to mass transit at Jamaica and Howard Beach.

Daniela Rapp learned about the new train in news accounts and was one of its earliest passengers on an AirTrain out of Jamaica Station yesterday, about 90 minutes after the system opened to the public at 2 p.m.

"It's great," said Ms. Rapp, who works in the editorial department of St. Mark's Press and was on her way to Italy.

Nancy D. Newcomb, scoping out the system for relatives flying in from Florida on Christmas Eve, was not so sure. "I've looked forward to this, but it may be too complicated for an out-of-towner," said Ms. Newcomb, a volunteer fund-raiser for her Smith College class (1954). "You have to have a lot of confidence in mass transit." (Especially now, given the AirTrain's brief opening-night power failure.)

Ms. Rapp: "It totally works. It took me 45 minutes. If I took the subway and the shuttle bus from Howard Beach, it could take me one and a half hours. Even the express bus can be a pain if you hit traffic."

Ms. Newcomb: "I'm skeptical. If an elevator or escalator is not working and you're lugging a suitcase, you're dead," she said. "There are many steps to this."

Before she got off at the Delta terminal, Ms. Rapp, 34, said she'd be taking the AirTrain again. Ms. Newcomb said she'd report back to her relatives and let them decide if they wanted to be adventuresome.

And so it went on Day 1 — the talk of, and on, the AirTrain. There were people saying it should go directly into Manhattan for its construction price tag of nearly $2 billion, and others saying it was better, at least, than the alternatives. There were tourists wondering if they could figure out the subway connections, and New Yorkers wondering if they could pack lightly enough to carry luggage up and down stairs.

People were starry-eyed at the uncharacteristic handsomeness of the trains, thrilled at their speed — from 9 to 19 minutes between Jamaica and Kennedy and up to 6 minutes to travel from terminal to terminal, as many airport employees do.

"Normally it's a nightmare," said Kevin W. Daley, who works for travel agencies. "The bus can take 25 minutes between American and United."

But. There are significant worries about AirTrain.

"I've been waiting for this for 30 years," said Fern Cano, who greets passengers for a limousine company, often at multiple terminals. "It's like a major employee benefit. But I can't imagine someone would schlep their bags. They'll take a limousine or a cab or a bus. That's the big issue. Luggage."

THAT'S the big issue, indeed.

The question too soon to answer is whether visitors and New Yorkers who do not live in some parts of Queens will accept a halfway solution to the transportation mess at Kennedy Airport, or will reject it despite the cost of $5 a ride as they did its less elegant predecessor: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's old train to the plane. That unsatisfying solution to the problem at Kennedy began in 1978 and died 12 years later because the trips took forever and forced people to carry luggage on and off trains and a bus.

The AirTrain, operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is speedy, so that is one positive change. But it really is a stretch to call it state of the art — "a 21st-century mass transit system," in the words of Gov. George E. Pataki. Not in a world where high-speed trains in major cities like London whisk passengers from airports into the center of town.

Consider the AirTrain's main route: to the Jamaica terminal from the airport. Escalators, elevators and Smarte Cartes can help with the luggage — to a point. But after walking a long corridor in Jamaica (without benefit of people movers) to the Long Island Rail Road or the subway station for the E, F, J and Z lines, those carts have to stay behind.

Elevators connect with the railroad platforms, but pending completion of construction, the entrance to the subway station is outside and down two steep banks of stairs.

Not great, but New Yorkers, weary from promises of the fabled one-seat ride, are big-time copers.

Bernard Clesca and his friend William Viera, residents of South Ozone Park who had been forced to take detour after detour during the lengthy construction of the AirTrain, took a ride on it out of curiosity yesterday. And did they hate the cause of their inconvenience?

"It's an experience," Mr. Clesca said.

No debating that.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

December 19, 2003

Faulty Doors at Airport Mar Start of AirTrain

By MICHAEL LUO


An AirTrain at the Jamaica, Queens, station on Wednesday. A potential passenger, Alan Sirlin of Valley Stream, on Long Island, peered inside.

Just hours after its high-profile debut, the AirTrain system had to be shut down by the Port Authority for two hours Wednesday night because platform doors failed to open and trapped passengers in their trains.

This came after an earlier mishap, more embarrassing than alarming, when the new train's steel doors closed suddenly on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as he stepped off at the opening ceremony on Wednesday, causing him to stumble while cameras rolled. Coupled with some complaints that the trains were slower than billed, it was an inauspicious opening for the $1.9 billion service linking Kennedy International Airport to local trains and subways in Howard Beach and Jamaica, Queens.

The AirTrain seemed to be running smoothly yesterday, and no additional problems were reported. "These are in essence some growing pains," said Pasquale DiFulco, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. "It's a brand new rail system that was built from scratch."

At 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, officials shut down the entire system because problems were being reported with the platform doors in several terminals. They were not opening, even as the trains stopped and opened their doors. AirTrain employees had to open the platform doors manually to let the passengers out.

Engineers worked for two hours to understand the problem, Mr. DiFulco said. The system was restarted sporadically, but did not resume for good until 11:30 p.m.

Paul Sheehan, a Manhattan lawyer, arrived in the middle of it all. At 10:20 p.m., he flew into Terminal 6 on a JetBlue flight from Fort Myers, Fla. After being told the shuttle bus to Howard Beach and the A train no longer existed, he made his way to the AirTrain platform.

With about 30 others, he waited inside a train for 25 minutes, he said yesterday, as an electronic announcement repeated in a drone that the train would be leaving "momentarily." An AirTrain employee on the train suggested that someone might have accidentally pressed an emergency strip on the train that forces it into the next station to await police officers, Mr. Sheehan said.

Finally, at 10:55 p.m., the train left the platform, only to move about 20 feet and stop again for another 20 minutes between terminals.

As a woman fussed unsuccessfully with an intercom system to try to reach someone, Mr. Sheehan wondered what to do. No announcements were coming over the public address system.

Suddenly, the train started moving again, pulling into the next terminal at 11:20 p.m., and the passengers got off there. Unsure of what to do next, Mr. Sheehan wandered over to a talkback system on the platform and pushed an information button. No one picked up. Then he pushed the emergency button. After several minutes, an operator answered.

"I explained we were in Terminal 7," Mr. Sheehan said. "We were trying to get to Howard Beach. He said, `I don't know what's going on.' "

Was another train coming?

"I don't know."

Are the shuttle buses running?

"I don't know."

After a few airport employees flagged down cabs for themselves, Mr. Sheehan and some tourists trooped onto a Q10 bus and rode it to Terminal 3, the end of its route. There, they got off and got on another Q10 bus to Kew Gardens, where he caught the E train to 50th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. He took a taxi home to the Upper West Side.

The time was 1:40 a.m., 3 hours and 20 minutes after he landed.

Mr. DiFulco said in an interview that the Port Authority apologizes to Mr. Sheehan and others who were inconvenienced. When the system was first shut down, passengers were taken off the trains and put on shuttle buses, he said. The problems reported by Mr. Sheehan and others are still being studied, he said. At minimum, the information button should have connected Mr. Sheehan immediately to a 24-hour operations center, he said.

What happened to him was more exasperating than anything else, Mr. Sheehan said. When they finally pulled into Terminal 7 and were told to get off the train, he said, most of the exasperated riders just started laughing.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Clarknt67]

Kinda sad, it seems like they spent all this time and money and there's no one who will reap any GREAT benefit from it.

Myself, I live in Brooklyn Heights, so the A train to Howard Beach is interminable, seems like an hour although it may be closer to 45 minutes.

The Shuttle Bus wasn't so bad in my experience. Now I have the privledge of paying an extra $5 when to transfer used to be free shave off what? 5, 10 minutes? YAY!

[dchui]

The Shuttle Bus wasn't so bad in my experience.

The shuttle bus was awful in my experience. It usually took me longer to get from the subway station to my intended terminal than the entire A train ride from Lower Manhattan, and the drivers were sometimes unprofessional in their conduct. $5 is a rip-off considering AirTrain is totally free for the people who are parking in the lot right next to the subway, but it's $5 I'll be happy to pay to never have to endure that shuttle bus ride again.

[fioco]

The $2b Airtrain is an intermediate solution, albeit an expensive one. Access between/among terminals is greatly enhanced. People from Long Island now have superb access; folks from Manhattan and Brooklyn have slightly better access; folks from Staten Island and The Bronx have permission to cry.

I believe a "link" exists (at least on paper) to the LIRR tracks in Jamaica. The Airtrain lightrail tracks are designed to be compatible with the MTA heavyrail tracks, but also purposely designed NOT to be compatible for MTA trains (Go figure, Port Authority obviously wants a clear division of authority).

IF such a link to the LIRR tracks in Jamaica exists, Airtrain cars could offer a one-seat ride to Penn Station in Manhattan (and, after East-Side access, to Grand Central too). Could a transit tunnel from Lower Manhattan to the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn be part of a plan to bring the Airtrain cars on LIRR tracks to the new transit center downtown? Merely speculation.

[Kris]

Galleries:

JFK AirTrain Opening

Howard Beach AirTrain Terminal

[Kris]

January 20, 2004

Finding J.F.K. Is Easy: First, Find the AirTrain.

By SUSAN SAULNY

Logistically, things were not going well yesterday for Natalie and Atis Lode, whose attempt to get from Manhattan to Kennedy International Airport started with a ride in the wrong direction on the E train.

The E train was supposed to take them to the new AirTrain light rail service in Jamaica, Queens - and eventually it did, once they reversed course - so they could catch the AirTrain to J.F.K.

Once they finally arrived at Jamaica Station, they wandered about Sutphin Boulevard and Archer Avenue looking for the AirTrain.

After standing in line at the Long Island Rail Road counter at the Jamaica Station, they received directions from an employee. They walked about a half-block to the sleek glass home of the AirTrain's Station D stop, but learned that the ticket machines were not taking credit cards, as they should, and since they had no small bills to pay the $5 fare, it was back to the L.I.R.R. for Mr. Lode, in search of change.

Despite the minor inconveniences, the Lodes, who are from Melbourne, Australia, said they still liked the AirTrain. "We just had a few problems finding it," Mrs. Lode said.

Holiday travel days like yesterday are the days that AirTrain faces a real test: many newcomers are having their first encounter with the system, and with its idiosyncrasies. Despite some confusion, however, most welcomed the new way to get to the airport. The idea is wonderful, riders said. The convenience is great. But first we have to figure it out.

"I think they just don't have all the signage up yet, and they really need that," said Sheilah Navat, who was on her way with her daughter, Aja, 12, to San Francisco.

Ms. Navat did have nice things to say, too.

"The price is fair, I suppose, considering the alternatives," she said. "And I love the big turnstiles."

Some passengers expressed concerns about the weather and traffic and said they chose the train with the hope of avoiding the difficulties that are involved in getting to J.F.K., which is known as one of the nation's most inaccessible major airports.

Port Authority officials estimated that 34,000 passengers would use AirTrain per day in its first year, and that the numbers would grow. So far, after about a month of operation, the train has about 15,000 to 20,000 riders a day, said Tiffany Townsend, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority.

"Over all, things are going very well," she said. "With ridership increasing, we're moving toward meeting our goal. It's still early on."

Ms. Townsend said there were no plans to increase the number of signs along the system or to change their placement. But once a few passenger anecdotes were related to her, she said: "Obviously, this is a customer service. If we feel the need to augment the number of signs or the placement of signs, we will."

Pamela Peralta, a Columbia graduate student who was returning for classes from visiting her family in Lima, Peru, found the view remarkable. "The train was very pretty," she said. "I don't know, maybe it's because it is winter, but it all looked very pretty outside, too."

But, alas, some luxuries are hard to give up, and for Anna Lee, a Barnard student who had recently landed, that meant she was taking a taxi.

"I just recently heard about the train," she said, lugging her bags to the first available cab outside Terminal 4. There was no line. "But I just came from South Korea, I'm really exhausted, and I just couldn't deal with it."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[JD]

"We just had a hard time finding it."

"First we have to figure it out."

"If we feel the need to augment the number of signs or the placement of signs, we will."


[sigh] A billion dollars doesn't seem to go as far as one might hope. Perhaps by 2030 NYC will have a simple, straightforward connection to its airports. Of course by then other cities (which will still have the modesty not to call themselves "The Capital of the Universe") will have MAGLEV trains and other state-of-the-art goodies.

[TLOZ Link5]

For once, I share your exasperation, JD. At least the new subway maps will have directions to the AirTrain; plus I've seen ads for the AirTrain on the subways that go to Jamaica and Howard Beach, and placards in the stations themselves. It's a start.

Also, from what I've heard Shanghai's maglev train isn't getting much business.

[Clarknt67]

I just took the Airtrain and was underwhelmed. The Train was malfunctioning for some reason and it would pause about 15 or more minutes at each stop. Many people got exasperated and hopped off to hail cabs.

It still takes FOREVER to get to Howard Beach via the A-Train. Why not a once an hour express straight from say Atlantic Ave station?

[JD]

Sounds like a lovely experience. *Very* state-of-the-art.

It is nothing short of maddening that a city as scintillating as NYC must have airport access that belongs to the Third World.

The 1.9 billion (probably a conservative estimate) that has been poured into AirTrain should have been saved and put towards a real solution. The money has been wasted, and worse yet, will only push progress another decade or two away. The Port Authority can point to this silly train and say, "Look what we're doing!!" while all the time other metropolises roar away in their bullet trains, laughing at the image of NYC rapidly shrinking away in the rear-view mirror.

[Kris]

January 26, 2004

Where's the AirTrain?

To the Editor:

Riders are having trouble finding the AirTrain because it is literally not on the subway map — or on signs in most subway stations ("Finding J.F.K. Is Easy: First, Find the AirTrain," news article, Jan. 20).

Maps in all subway stations, cars and platforms still show the now-defunct free shuttle bus to J.F.K. terminals. AirTrain won't be added to the subway map until Feb. 22, when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority publishes a new version to coincide with major route changes.

There are also few signs in the subways, and that may not change soon. When the M.T.A. ran its own airport service, it had a distinctive logo and was noted in all platform signs on the A, the line used by the Train to the Plane.

The AirTrain is a Port Authority service. But should that make a difference? Since the bulk of the AirTrain customers are coming from M.T.A. facilities, perhaps the Port Authority should help underwrite subway and commuter rail signs.

GENE RUSSIANOFF

New York, Jan. 20, 2004

The writer is senior attorney, New York Public Interest Research Group Straphangers Campaign.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[professionalx]

the whole airtrain story is a perfect illustration the bizarro-world funding system for mass transit. Port Authority, to make use of federally-controlled airport monies, had to build a train which specifically could be used ONLY for airport transit, and specifically NOT provide any benefit for those not travelling to the airport. Too bad they couldn't find a way to connect it directly to lower Manhattan - to the PATH train at the WTC, thus giving a direct connection between Newark & JFK airports, connecting to the LIRR by passing through the Atlantic Ave. terminal in Brooklyn.

[TLOZ Link5]

I saw the AirTrain on a new subway map on the 4 Train today. The map also shows the service restoration on the Mahattan Bridge and the PATH to the WTC. The AirTrain route line uses the same icon as commuter rail, (i.e.: |-|-|-|-|-| for tracks, a solid square for a station) but it's yellow instead of dark blue and doesn't show up very well outside of the airport (airport grounds are indicated as a brownish field, while all other non-park land is beige). The stations don't have any names per se, but the stops are indicated by numerals that indicate which airport terminal is which.

[Kris]

view out the front window, approx. 60 mph, above the Van Wyck Expressway

www.meccapixel.com