There is a fence in Howard Beach Queens that separates the inside of JFK Airport from the outside. On one side of the fence is the Howard Beach Airtrain station. There, a subway rider can board the Airtrain to ride to the airport and freight terminals, to work or to travel. The cost is $5.00. On the other side of the fence, a driver parked in a parking lot can board the Airtrain to ride to the airport and freight terminals, to work or to travel. The cost is zero. Before the Airtrain existed, there was a shuttle bus for both the parking lots and the subway station; it was free to both. They eliminated the free bus when the opened the Airtrain. JFK is a big airport, so the Airtrain transports people two miles from the central terminal area to the subway for that $5.00. New York City Transit then transports them 10 miles to Manhattan, for a $2.00 base fare, but far less with discounts.
To understand how this absurdity happened, understand a little history. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey proposed an airport access system for its three airports – JFK, LaGuardia and Newark, including the Airtrain connecting JFK to LaGuardia and on to Long Island City, where a transfer could be made to subway and commuter rail, and then onto Manhattan. In exchange, New York City agreed airport travelers at all three airports would pay a passenger facility charge on every airline ticket. At the time, while Newark had been modernized and upgraded over the years, JFK and LaGuardia were a shoddy embarrassment. Yet they made big profits, which were used (along with the World Trade Center and toll revenues, which was assumed in the original 1960s PATH takeover deal) to subsidize fares on the PATH train and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was agreed the airports would have to be upgraded. Those big profits would be used, in part, to pay for the upgrades.
Then the deep early 1990s recession hit. The MTA, faced with a fiscal crisis, jacked up tolls and transit fares, borrowed money, and cut service for New York City drivers and riders. The Port Authority, at the behest of New Jersey, on the other hand, kept its PATH fares and bridge and tunnel tolls frozen at much lower levels. More and more money was diverted from the New York City airports, in addition to toll revenues and World Trade Center revenues, to New Jersey commuters. So the passenger facility charge was diverted from the Airtrain program to pay for other the airport improvements, which subsequently have been made. LaGuardia passengers paid the fare, but got nothing with regard to improved airport access. JFK got the Airtrain to the subway, but not to Manhattan or even Long Island City. Newark got an Airtrain to the PATH, as originally promised.
Eventually, under pressure from Mayor Giuliani, New Jersey tolls and fares were increased, and for a time at least the “cross harbor transportation” systems collectively broke even. But the money diverted in the 1990s was never paid back (such ripoffs, like the “free” pension enhancements for public employees, cost you forever), and the PATH fare is still just $1.50, for a much longer ride than the $5.00 Airtrain. The New Jersey tolls are still much lower than the New York tolls. And the MTA has proposed increasing tolls and transit fares further. The Port Authority, given the profits from New York City’s airports, apparently has no need. In exchange for an upfront payment to help balance the budget, thus improving his short-term popularity, Mayor Bloomberg gave up any jurisdiction at the city’s airports and stopped criticizing the Port Authority.
Once again, Suburban PATH riders pay just $1.50. That should make Brodsky happy, since although it isn’t his suburb it is the type of people he believes should have the advantages. Drivers pay nothing, while subway riders pay $5.00. That should make Brodsky, McCaffrey, Weprin AND Weiner happy, as they have kept New York Airtrain Tax Free and thereby protected the needy middle class from out of touch billionaires. These gentleman, however, would presumably prefer that the Port Authority provide a deep discount of even a free ride for transit riders over age 65, including (especially) the affluent elderly and public employee pensioners. Perhaps, like the exclusion of pension income from taxable income, the retired can be exempted from the Airtrain Tax is they are retired public employees regardless of age.
The fact that the Airtrain was never extended beyond Jamaica is also a victory for McCaffery, who objected to having an additional transit service run through his district. One proposed route was down the center of the BQE, a congested highway that is currently a benign influence on the community in his eyes, I guess. You can head over to the Airtrain ROW in the Van Wyck to see how much worse a perpetually congested six-lane highway filled with fossil-fuel driven vehicles is when an electric train on rails breezes by. Moreover, if the Airtrain had run on stilts down the center of the BQE, it might have attracted outsiders to the area. Not that it would have stopped there, but why have them even see McCaffrey’s district and get ideas? As part of an effort to kill an extended airport access system, McCaffrey even floated a red herring, as the Congestion Tax Free folks have. Cut service on the overloaded Flushing Subway Line. Then run the Airtrain backwards from LaGuardia to Shea Stadium then down the Flushing line taking the place of some of the subway trains. (Hey McCaffery, some of us have good long-term memories).
And don’t tell me drivers are already paying, because they pay to park. If transit riders brought a piece of equipment weighing thousands of pounds with them to the airport, and wanted to store it there while they were away, they’d be charged separately for that too. Moreover, this assertion would fly in the face of the Port Authority’s position when it elected to divert the money to New Jersey, rather than extend the Airtrain to the CBD. Like people-movers in other airports, said the PA, the Airtrain is part of the airport. So you can take some other transit mode, like the subway or LIRR, to the airport now. So there already is a direct transit connection to the airport. Then you use the Airtrain to move around the airport. This point of view has some merit, since rather than have the Airtrain end at one point in the CBD, people can talk transit multiple transit lines to get to it from many directions. One PA planner even told me that if the agency had its way, it would extend the system to Long Island City (over McCaffrey’s dead body) for a faster and easier connection with more lines. But if the Airtrain is a part of the airport, however, that means that some people are being charged $5.00 to move around the airport, and some are not.
Of course the Port Authority has its own reason to favor drivers. Along with landing fees, concessions, and that passenger facility charge, parking fees account for a large share of airport profits. Profits that had been (and perhaps still are) used to keep New Jersey tolls cheaper than MTA tolls and PATH fares cheaper than subway fares. In the 1990s, at a meeting I attended on airport access on behalf my then-employer the NYC Department of City Planning, one cynical transportation planner got a big laugh by saying that financially if the Port Authority were forced to get rid of one transportation mode an a airport, it would probably choose the airplanes. Taxi drivers, as well, like the present lack of service. The Port Authority, for its part, says the Airtrain plus transit is priced to be competitive with taxis for those traveling alone. But the Port Authority, and not the MTA, takes the lion’s share of that taxi-competitive fare.
At one time it could be assumed that anyone traveling on an airplane was affluent. But no more. Millions of immigrants now hold low and moderate wage jobs in New York City. In addition to scraping by, and sending money home to help their family members, many scrape together enough money to travel to their home country and visit those family members. They travel via JFK. Most do not park cars, because they have no cars to park. They were the ones on the free shuttle bus. What do they do now?
Both Martin Luther King and Gandhi held that unjust laws should be resisted, not followed. I have just about given up on any sense of fairness from our political process, so thoroughly is it controlled by self-serving vested interests linked to incumbent pols. So I wouldn’t expect the Port Authority to put in a bus stop for private van services that might be able, if given the chance, to transport people the two miles from the central terminal area to the subway for less than $5.00. But perhaps such private vans, or taxis serving as shuttles for multiple passengers, should start making that run illegally. And perhaps rather than oppose such lawbreaking, right-minded people should support it and oppose enforcement actions.
Would that be right? It may be the future. We won’t have schools. We won’t get social security. We’ll have to pay taxes, and won’t get public services at all. So we’ll have to pay again for anything we get, and break the laws and risk punishment to get anything at all. Only of there is a choice might the Airtrain fare be cut to the same $1.50 as the PATH.