Airport Rail Death-knell Generates Sharp Commentary
We were wrong to write last week that the Port Authority's much-maligned NYC airport rail access program had died a "friendless" death. Despite the proposal's many flaws, Mayor Giuliani, Queens Borough President Claire Shulman, U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan and several editorial boards have made strong public protests against its demise in the last week. The Mayor declared the Port Authority had outlived its usefulness and should be abolished. Giuliani said that an airport rail link is critical for New York City's economic future. A Newsday editorial acknowledged that the proposal to locate the rail line's terminal at East 59th Street, disconnected from other transit, was "pretty dopey." The Port Authority, backed by Governor Pataki's office, maintains a part of the project will still be built, possibly linking Jamaica station to JFK airport. Moynihan took a different tack, blaming lack of vision at the NY State Dept. of Transportation in the allocation to ordinary road reconstruction projects of nearly $5 billion the state will receive from the federal government as reimbursement for building the NY State Thruway (in the 1940s and 1950s). He told the NY Times that the windfall represents a perfect opportunity to carry out a large scale project like an airport rail line. The Senator said it was his opinion that the NY State DOT had been "brain-dead for twenty years."
