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Meanwhile, we still can’t take the subway to LaGuardia despite a few billion dollars in recent renovations.
by CPLX 8y ago
Meanwhile, we still can’t take the subway to LaGuardia despite a few billion dollars in recent renovations.
- bamboozled 8y agoThat is pretty unbelievable honestly
- sneak 8y agoThe Las Vegas monorail is on the same side of the strip as the airport. It doesn’t go to the airport. These systems are working as intended. It’s about extracting money from travelers, not time savings or energy efficiency. I would be astounded if there weren’t overt or covert flows of cash from the taxi companies to the decisionmakers that blockade these projects.
- djsumdog 8y agoI was really surprised the monorail didn't get to the airport. I suspect Taxi companies originally lobbied to make it that way.
- Gibbon1 8y agoIn the US the Airports, Taxi companies, Muni's buses, and commuter rail systems are all Balkanized fiefdoms. They all really need to be under one thumb.
- jrockway 8y agoI don't think New York's system is about extracting money from travellers. JFK has a train which you pay for; that one might be about extracting money from travellers. (I don't understand why rail passengers pay a $5 fare, but cars driving to the airport don't pay a $5 toll.) LGA has several express buses, one linking it to the N/W and Manhattan, the other linking it to the 7/E/F/M/R. The bus that goes to N/W and Manhattan is the "obvious" choice but is terrible and slow, the bus that goes to the 7/E/F/M/R makes 0 stops on the way to the subway and is very fast. Since the MTA added that route, going to or from LGA has been significantly less terrible. It is not a train, but it's efficient and cheap for the MTA to operate. It is crazy that there is no train directly to the airport, but it's more about NIMBY-ism and cost than any real desire to screw people. People live in the neighborhood around the airport; they don't want their house torn down so some tourists don't have to take the bus. Whether that's right or wrong, I don't know... but in the meantime the express bus does OK.
- reaperducer 8y agoThe Las Vegas monorail is on the same side of the strip as the airport. It doesn’t go to the airport. Soon it will. It's just been granted authority to expand down to next to the airport. The airport is the next logical step. The reason the LV monorail doesn't go to the airport is because at the time it was constructed the taxi lobby was very powerful. Uber and Lyft radically changed that and the taxi companies are now struggling (and rightfully so). This reduced their power, allowing the monorail to expand unimpeded by legacy interests.
- ETHisso2017 8y agoIn New Vegas, the monorail does extend to the airport. Guess a fictional nuclear holocaust is what it takes...
- Gibbon1 8y agoLight rail in San Jose, passes by the airport, nearest station is a half hour walk from the terminal.