Why doesn't the subway go to Laguardia?

[Law]

I always thought the Airtrain along the GCP would work, and its a closer trip from the at Willets then from the . I even forgot about the LIRR, yes there's no direct connection to Jamaica (Port Washington branch) but its something. It would also give some use for the station during the winter (maybe some retail development), when the area is desolate save TA workers going in and out of that depot there or Corona Yard.

 

So basically build a transit hub/mall in that area, connecting Corona yard, LaGuardia AirTrain, LIRR and the Train and the buses that serve that area.

[CenSin]

I always thought the Airtrain along the GCP would work, and its a closer trip from the at Willets then from the . I even forgot about the LIRR, yes there's no direct connection to Jamaica (Port Washington branch) but its something. It would also give some use for the station during the winter (maybe some retail development), when the area is desolate save TA workers going in and out of that depot there or Corona Yard.

I think it's more valid to measure the trip's distance from Manhattan. Very few people will only travel between Citifield and the airport.

[w8Hou]

Maybe Port Authority of NY & NJ add new free non-stop shuttle bus between LGA and Astoria to relief M60?

 

You wish, PANYNJ has a contract with NYAS franchise route.

[Shortline Bus]

Isn't Mets Willets Point an elevated station. Wouldn't it be best that such a line would be tunneled from the terminal of the which is Flushing Main Street, because it's underground.

 

 

Again Roadcruiser not trying to sound rude did you read my comments on the SAS and any airtrain construction on Ditmars? Main/Roosevelt is one of NYC's busiest coordiors and already a nightmare with traffic. Do you want a airtrain construction to make any worse?

 

Plus the Q48 is already there at Main/Roosevelt as well to/from LGA.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

I did wish the Laguardia Airport extenstion went through, but NIMBY's killed the project. The problem that they have is that the , and Astoria Elevated is elevated, and they believe that thing is a scar. Recently I've read that some people even want to see that thing get torn down. Are they stupid have they read on the Archer Avenue Subway. So there won't be any , and extension to Laguardia Airport, because of this. A better option is to have a line branch off the Flushing Line from it's terminus, and send it to Laguardia, but the distance is vast, and it would cost more then an extension from the Astoria Elevated.

 

A better idea is to create a Laguardia Airport by digging a tunnel between Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard & Mets Willet Point with a station at Laguardia Airport, and other stations in between connecting the Astoria & the Flushing Elevated & allowing a rail connection to Laguardia Airport at both sides.

 

PS Did you know that Laguardia Airport is the largest airport in the nation without rail transit.

 

They are certainly scars... I don't blame the NIMBYS... And that is exactly why Staten Island will never have a subway. In reality most people don't want one as they are concerned that it will open Staten Island to crime, so they prefer the express buses, as do I. :tup: I can certainly relate to Astoria... Lovely area, but the overhead subway is an eyesoar...

[Shortline Bus]

They are certainly scars... I don't blame the NIMBYS... And that is exactly why Staten Island will never have a subway. In reality most people don't want one as they are concerned that it will open Staten Island to crime, so they prefer the express buses, as do I. :tup: I can certainly relate to Astoria... Lovely area, but the overhead subway is an eyesoar...

 

Not to mention it very very diffcult to bulid any subway lines or extensions since the 5 boros now has about 8 1/2 Million people in the city limits.

 

That why I have long suggested light rails & SBS"(Bus rapid transit) to be bulit especially in the outerboros.

[rtetro]

From dictionary.com

 

NIMBY - used to express opposition by local citizens to the locating in their neighborhood of a civic project, as a jail, garbage dump, or drug rehabilitation center, that, though needed by the larger community, is considered unsightly, dangerous, or likely to lead to decreased property values. Stands for "not in my back yard"

 

A good overall definition. However, doesn't history show that when a new rapid transit line is brought into a neighborhood the property values go up? Much of the growth of the outer buroughs came about as a result of the subway.

 

Granted, many nimbys will object to an el line being built through their neighborhoods. The alternative is to take the Astoria line underground, extending it to LGA. This would eliminate the el structure from near Queensboro Plaza to Astoria (a plus for the neighborhoods through which it currently travels) and remove the need for an elevated structure beyond Astoria to LGA. The past shows us that the overall effect would be positive.

 

In so far as I can see, it would be a win-win situation....IF the money could be found for the project. In which lies the rub.

[Roadcruiser1]

I don't understand why people hate Elevated Lines. The only two reasons are the blocking of sunlight, and loud noises, but the benefits outweight it in the long run. For example subway tunneling like Second Avenue takes decades. It could take 10+ years to dig a subway tunnel, but an elevated line could be done in 4 or 5 years. It is also cheaper and easier to build. You would only have to put the supports to bedrock, build the column, and attach steel or a concrete sheet between the two supports and connect them to the others, and you get the basic section of the elevated line. Then you would put tracks, the platforms, entrances and exits, and that is about it.

 

For tunnels you would have to dig at least 40 feet below street level. During construction there would be loud noises. The hardest part would be hacking at tons of hard rock, and would be extremly expensive, and even worse could take decades, construction would ruin the neighborhood and destroy property value even more then an El's construction, stations would have to be dug out and basically everything would have to be dug out, and connected to street level, and it's extremely expensive to tunnel.

 

So if I was a transit planner I wouldn't pick tunneling for minute. Elevated Lines would be the way to go screw those NIMBY's.

[Tokkemon]

Elevateds that are done properly being built out of prefabricated concrete sections are even cheaper than the old-school metal ones. They take up far less space, last longer, and they look WAY better.

[Roadcruiser1]

Yeah. For example some sections of the Flushing Elevated has beautiful carvings on the wall, and it is unique. One of my ideas for an elevated line include building it out of prefab concrete, but it would have arc's on the bottom. It would basically create a beautiful modern elevated structure.

[Shortline Bus]

I don't understand why people hate Elevated Lines. The only two reasons are the blocking of sunlight, and loud noises, but the benefits outweight it in the long run. For example subway tunneling like Second Avenue takes decades. It could take 10+ years to dig a subway tunnel, but an elevated line could be done in 4 or 5 years. It is also cheaper and easier to build. You would only have to put the supports to bedrock, build the column, and attach steel or a concrete sheet between the two supports and connect them to the others, and you get the basic section of the elevated line. Then you would put tracks, the platforms, entrances and exits, and that is about it.

 

For tunnels you would have to dig at least 40 feet below street level. During construction there would be loud noises. The hardest part would be hacking at tons of hard rock, and would be extremly expensive, and even worse could take decades, construction would ruin the neighborhood and destroy property value even more then an El's construction, stations would have to be dug out and basically everything would have to be dug out, and connected to street level, and it's extremely expensive to tunnel.

 

So if I was a transit planner I wouldn't pick tunneling for minute. Elevated Lines would be the way to go screw those NIMBY's.

 

Playing devil's advocate do you young man (road)live on an elvated line with your parents? Can you handle trains coming every few minutes non-stop 7 days a week 24 hours a day?

 

That what homeowners and other people living near an el have to deal.

[Roadcruiser1]

I live by the West End Elevated 24/7 I don't know what the deal is with people complaining.

[Guest lance25]

You're one person, not in any way representative of the entire populace. What may be good for you may not be for others. While you may not mind an elevated line next door to you, most people will frown upon new el construction.

[Nova RTS 9147]

Playing devil's advocate do you young man (road)live on an elvated line with your parents? Can you handle trains coming every few minutes non-stop 7 days a week 24 hours a day?

 

That what homeowners and other people living near an el have to deal.

 

Did it for ten years with no issue.

[Law]

Would a new elevated structure be even built in yesterday's standards? I think they would use prefab concrete and make it similar to JFK AirTrain.

[B35 via Church]

damn thats a shame......

 

If money wasn't a factor, couldn't NYC just use eminent domain?

 

How do you declare eminent domain on an (entire) already established neighborhood ?

(Astoria)

 

 

Sheesh...

 

the rich have way too much power in this country.

 

ya got that right !

 

 

Whats NIMBY?

 

IRT Bx Exp. already gave you what the acronym stands for....

 

A NIMBY is a person/group of people that opposes ANY kind of change in their own general area of residency for their own selfish reasons.... they'll fight tooth & nail to prevent that particular change from happening.

 

...that last part is the sole difference b/w a simple group of complainers, and NIMBY-ists....

 

 

Isn't Mets Willets Point an elevated station. Wouldn't it be best that such a line would be tunneled from the terminal of the which is Flushing Main Street, because it's underground.

kinda answered your own question...

 

there's too huge a difference in grade to have one set of tracks ascending from main st to willets pt. (as they do now), in conjunction with having another set of tracks descending below the level of the current main street station/platform....

 

..and why would I want to take the all the way to the last stop, to xfer for a train going to the airport... that's a hell of a backtrack, even if you're coming from, say, Jackson Hgts/Roosevelt....

[CenSin]

I live by the West End Elevated 24/7 I don't know what the deal is with people complaining.

Not everyone is a transit-fan and not all transit fans like everything that comes out of a train or bus either. This noise might be entertaining to you, but not everyone will enjoy the same things.

[Mark 1]

Transportation to the airports isn't the best at all and extending the N to LaGuardia would be a great improvement over using a cab or the bus. However, the #1 factor is funding and #2 you really can't build an elevated structure these days due to the expected opposition.

[goten2255]

i have wondered for sometime why the subway hasn't gone to lagurida or any rail connections at all to LGA but JFK and NWK is well served by rail.

 

but maybe with concerte can help built it faster and like some people have said it takes less space on the footprint.

 

an example i want to put is the Miami Metrorail i live in miami and the metrorail over here was constructed and is being extended to the airport using concrete, prefabracted parts so i been wondering why haven't they invested on that.

 

all this talk about the being extended to NJ if other boroughs could have good rail connections that serve the areas that is vastly underserved by mass transit.

 

and if the is going to be extended to LGA then i think it should be the two followings, 1. to go directly to the airport 2. do what my city is doing extending the metrorail to the MIC (miami intermodel Center) and then the MIA Mover to the airport.

 

anyways this is my two cents if anybody wants to know of the miami metrorail or any things of miami let me know.

[Joel Up Front]

The same reason why the SAS will fail again:

 

NIMBY's.

[MikeGerald]

For a very long period of time, (1950-60's) the TA was not building subway and elevated lines, but tearing them down - for example, the Lexington Avenue El, the Second Avenue El, Third Avenue El, and some on.

 

Elevated train lines were seen as "blight" - something to be removed, it was dark, noisy, scary, evidence of "bad urban life", - in contrast to the newly built suburbs and the ease of the car. The people wanted a home and a white picket fence, not to be resigned to a crowded slow elevated train or subway train as their way to get about. Many people still like that vision.

 

For a very long period of time (1940-1970's) barely any new subway or elevated lines in NYC was built - most of the expansion was due to the conversion of former railroad lines into subway lines - (Dyre Avenue, Rockaways, etc.) Most of the time - this meant that if a transit line was not built prior to this time, it was not going to be built!

 

Yes, there have been thousands of "plans" by subway fans and planners for this line or that - but getting the money was always tricky. Even when money was available in the 1970's for the Second Avenue subway and its Queens extensions - the money was going to run out - the city's fiscal crisis, and the crisis of the subways.

 

In effect land use patterns in various communities become one where rail transit existed, and where it did not - the people became used to it, worked around it. Very often in the places where there wasn't rail transit, the population densities never rose high enough that establishing a rail line that would to break even immediately after opening resulted in few viable corridors. That is why the Second Avenue line in Manhattan is viable as a transit line - and many parts of Staten Island is not - it's about population density and ridership. (Bus transit is a different issue.)

 

The idea from some transit fans to tear down an elevated line, and to replace it with a subway line - has to take a pause in light of the experiences of a) the whole experience of the Second Avenue subway and its various plans, bond issues, and other headaches; and B) the Archer Avenue line as a replacement for the Jamaica Avenue elevated line - and the decade and a half of issues. In this city it is a lot easier to tear something down - and much much harder to actually build something that is actually useful to those displaced. A look at the history of problems with urban renewal is a telling response to such wishful thinking.

 

The extension of rail transit to La Guardia Airport also has to take into account the riders that need access and about the airport complex, and the needs of those riders. Carrying luggage on the subway and buses is not often the easiest thing to do. Airports tend to be regional transit centers not just facilities used by city dwellers. Access from downtown or mid-town becomes just one of the criteria in the planning.

 

The NIMBY issue is actually a complex issue - not one just given to a quick sound bite. Yes, often the property values argument is used to deter certain developments, but also often used is the "those people" argument. However sometimes - what is proposed means a REAL change in the community, and often without much benefit to those affected by the REAL changes. And it must be stated - most folks (if offered a choice) do not like to lose their homes, businesses and patterns of existence and connections to those around them. It is very easy for people outside of an affected area to suggest that "those people" lose something for "other people" to benefit. My point is the NIMBY is a more complex issue - than a simple sound bite conveys.

 

I just wanted to get these points into the debate.

Mike

[Shortline Bus]

Great History/Background info Mike on the elvated issue in NYC. If our younger members read that detailed info, it should make it clear fair or not, being realistic on the diffcult on buliding any new subway lines. Or extending the current ones.

[R32 3348]

I personally support a rail extension to LGA, and a direct subway connection at that. There's no point in making an Airtrain from Astoria Blvd. and adding an additional fare when you can simply extend the Astoria Line which ends just a little north. Obviously we don't have the money to do this right now but it should be looked into once again, years into the future. I'm all for a truly regional transit system that gives direct access to airports. IMO it's ridiculous that neither NYC airport has direct subway access. I don't really get why the was extended to Archer instead of to the airport along the Van Wyck Expressway to the airport as originally planned, but either way it's a moot point and out of my control so that's the end of that...

 

Isn't Mets Willets Point an elevated station. Wouldn't it be best that such a line would be tunneled from the terminal of the which is Flushing Main Street, because it's underground.

To reach LGA from Main St., the would have to make a U-turn getting back to the airport. If you were bent on extending a branch of the there (when the is much more direct) then Willets Point would be a much more viable option.

Again Roadcruiser not trying to sound rude did you read my comments on the SAS and any airtrain construction on Ditmars? Main/Roosevelt is one of NYC's busiest coordiors and already a nightmare with traffic. Do you want a airtrain construction to make any worse?

 

Plus the Q48 is already there at Main/Roosevelt as well to/from LGA.

The Q48 is also already there at Willets Pt. so it doesn't really make sense to build an AirTrain from Willets Point when the Q48 already has a straight shot to the airport from Willets Pt.

I don't understand why people hate Elevated Lines. The only two reasons are the blocking of sunlight, and loud noises, but the benefits outweight it in the long run. For example subway tunneling like Second Avenue takes decades. It could take 10+ years to dig a subway tunnel, but an elevated line could be done in 4 or 5 years. It is also cheaper and easier to build. You would only have to put the supports to bedrock, build the column, and attach steel or a concrete sheet between the two supports and connect them to the others, and you get the basic section of the elevated line. Then you would put tracks, the platforms, entrances and exits, and that is about it.

 

For tunnels you would have to dig at least 40 feet below street level. During construction there would be loud noises. The hardest part would be hacking at tons of hard rock, and would be extremly expensive, and even worse could take decades, construction would ruin the neighborhood and destroy property value even more then an El's construction, stations would have to be dug out and basically everything would have to be dug out, and connected to street level, and it's extremely expensive to tunnel.

 

So if I was a transit planner I wouldn't pick tunneling for minute. Elevated Lines would be the way to go screw those NIMBY's.

I agree that elevateds would be better than subway lines. However, tunneling has less of an impact than constructing elevated lines. All you have to do is construct a place for the tunnel boring machine to be put into the ground, and once the tunnel boring machine gets to work that's all there is to it in terms of excessive construction-related noise. The actual tunneling does not take very long, it is the whole scope of the project - buidling the actual stations, installing communications equipment - that takes the bulk of the time. Construction would not ruin the neighborhood as much as it would in building an el, since subway construction would only apply to a short 5-block stretch of land while el construction would be for the duration of the entire el.

 

EDIT - Of course, I'm talking about conventional steel els such as the ones seen in this city. Concrete els wouldn't have the same noise issues; the LIRR is much more quiet whenever it passes by and you're near the LIRR embankment, when compared to the subway. Also, they would blend in much better with the community since they wouldn't look ridiculously 19th-century.

The same reason why the SAS will fail again:

 

NIMBY's.

SAS is NOT going to fail over NIMBY's. Yes you hear community outreach but these people realize that this project is needed. There are minor lawsuits against the but these lawsuits only demand that certain things be fixed (such as in the recent lawsuit over the 86th St. exits) and do not actually threaten the project as a whole. The demand for this project far exceeds the minority speaking out against (but not necessarily opposed to) this project.

[metsfan]

It would need to be elevated, only way to afford it.

 

- A

[Ceya]

If there is a going to be a train to LGA, you have to stop the people who want it to be torn down.

 

Over the years there have been more people who want to get rid of the airport. They state the airport is subpar and even with past renovations, it still falls short.

 

Port Authority President wanted to redo the whole airport from the ground up.

 

S/F<

CEYA!