New York Area Airport Evolution Vision

[jis]

The RPA Vision for the evolution of New York Area Airports appears in this PDF tome:

http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Upgrading-to-World-Class-Revisited.pdf

From a rail transit perspective, it is interesting how much attention has been paid to the seamless integration with rail. Specially for Newark Airport, it calls for moving the Central Concourse with checkin and baggage facilities to be collocated with the vastly expanded new rail station a little further south (west) of the current station, with APM connecting to six gate area modules. This will make EWR similar to Shanghai or Frankfurt airports.

Here is the new proposed layout of Newark Airport:


Anyway, thought some here might be interested.

 

[trainman74]

Interesting they use the term "headhouse," more commonly associated with train stations, to describe the main part of the airport.

 

[saxman]

Wow, that's quite the plan with new runways and everything. I browsed through the whole document and saw diagrams of JFK too, but did not read much. Isn't EWR suppose to break ground on a new terminal though? It would be in the way of their planned runway on the west side and it's not at all taken into account. I also thought the addition of a runway or two at JFK was an interesting location too. Lots of cargo and maintenance hangars are over there and looks like most of the terminals are incorporated into the existing new terminals that have been built in the last decade. I believe JFK is about to expand Terminal 1 in the next few months too. I do like the idea of better train service to both. The silly disney train at EWR is a disaster. The use of the old LIRR Rockaway Beach line to JFK is also a great idea. It also looks like they plan on Teterboro being demolished.

 

[jis]

This is what the Regional Planning Association thinks what will happen Of course PANYNJ will come up with their own plan which is worse than anyone else can conjure up, waste a zillion dollars on it and build it, which will be obsolete the day before it is completed and will have to be torn down in 15 years. Otherwise they would not be PANYNJ now, would they?

 

[PVD]

If NYC goes ahead with its plans to close Rikers Island it would be a huge mistake not to use part of it for LGA expansion, the present 2 runway configuration, with an intersection at one end, can be a real bottleneck.

 

[jis]

The real bottleneck in the NY area is actually the airspace and conflicts between arrival and departure paths of the three major airports. La Guardia has serious conflicts with both JFK and EWR, reducing net capacity of all three even if they had every runway conflict free on the ground at each airport.

 

[PVD]

It is certainly congested airspace with real capacity problems. That will certainly get worse before (if ever) it gets better. The intersection really does make LGA worse than it could be.

 

[adamj023]

If NYC goes ahead with its plans to close Rikers Island it would be a huge mistake not to use part of it for LGA expansion, the present 2 runway configuration, with an intersection at one end, can be a real bottleneck.

Closing Rikers island altogether is a huge mistake. I would have kept Rikers open but built new higher facilities so parts of it could be used along with airport expansion projects. With that being said, it is unclear what will happen to it.

All three airports should modernize and coordinate airspace so it should be used efficiently along with the newer control systems and newer aircraft that can work with it. All three airports are needed and are all seeing record passenger growth. I don’t see any of the airports as better than another assuming all were modernized. Each has their own purpose and location or specific flight availability are primarily how people will choose airports. As far as rail connections, Newark will have the most at three with PATH, NJ Transit and Amtrak. JFK has two with LIRR and NYC Subway. La Guardia has plans for LIRR and NYC Subway but that is being questioned since location of rail is wrong for many. I could see expansions on rail links such as bigger facilities to handle more people if growth requires it over time.