Extending the N train makes sense while Bus Rapid Transit just another bus

The big travel weekend ending today brought pre-COVID crowds to airports and LaGuardia Airport visitors are seeing a state of the art, modern transportation hub. If you haven’t been there yet, run, don’t walk. Because, unfortunately, that just might be your best option for getting there.

As governor, Andrew Cuomo championed some major infrastructure projects. But his plan for an AirTran to LaGuardia was roundly criticized by many people, for good reasons. It’s been almost a year and a half since I wrote an opinion in these pages that his plan, requiring airport travelers to navigate a circuitous series of train connections, was seriously flawed. I argued for extending the N Train from the west to the terminals, providing a real one-seat ride for millions of city residents and visitors.

When Kathy Hochul became governor, she did indeed stop the misguided Train to Nowhere, and convened an expert panel to make recommendations for a better approach. In their concluding statement, the panel was very clear about what the best option would be:

“We are unanimous in our opinion that a one-seat ride via subway from the west is the optimal way to achieve the best mass transportation connection to LaGuardia Airport.”

In addition to the expert panel, the governor assembled a team to provide a technical assessment of a wide range of options. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, extending the subway to the terminals is still not the plan. The option of extending the existing N train was summarily ruled out, deemed non-compliant with FAA standards, and in conflict with some existing utility lines. Alternative approaches for resolving this challenge, such as adding runway length at the north end of the runway to free-up space at the south end, are not even mentioned in the report. Instead, the concept is to build a dedicated bus service, called Bus Rapid Transit (or BRT), requiring subway passengers to transfer to a bus for the final few miles.

Let’s consider what this means for travelers. Today, almost everyone arriving to or leaving LGA uses a car or a car service. Millions of taxis, car services, and private vehicles accessing LGA each year, with fewer than 2% of travelers using the public transit (bus) system. On busy days at the airport, it’s not just difficult to get there, but the Grand Central Parkway — the main thoroughfare connecting upper Manhattan and the Bronx to Long Island and Brooklyn — becomes its own parking lot. And all those cars extract a heavy environmental cost. Providing an efficient, reliable, and quick public transit connection to the airport is one of those opportunities where the benefits are shared beyond just those using the system.

To be sure, BRT systems often provide real advantages over traditional bus systems, especially when running on dedicated rights-of-way and connecting multiple destinations. There are many candidate streets in New York where BRT may be the optimum system for public transit. But that’s hardly the point. For this specific challenge at the airport, we need to build an intuitive, passenger-friendly one-seat ride to connect the airport to the rest of the city, providing a quicker, cheaper, and better option than cars. No matter how you slice it, a bus system that is only one leg of a journey can not compete with the car for this ridership.

BRT would require a transfer from the subway. What is the vision of how people with luggage, or traveling in groups, or with a range of physical abilities, or traveling during hot, cold, or rainy days will experience the move from the subway to wait at an outdoor (albeit “covered”) bus stop? Does anyone really believe that this system will convince many people to not use a car? An honest, substantive discussion is needed of what the various systems would mean for the travelers’ experience.

We have an opportunity to provide a quick and easy, great passenger experience directly to and from the airport, like many other global cities. Imagine arriving at LaGuardia and seeing a subway entrance. Imagine seeing LGA identified throughout the subway system as the last stop on the N line. The ability to easily identify an intuitive link, leveraging the existing mass transit system, is needed for people to use the transit option at scale, and would be invaluable for the city.

In this particular case, BRT is not a step in the right direction. New York deserves a better, more resilient investment in our transportation infrastructure, to make public transit the best option for all who use the airport. Let’s not squander this once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Cohn is a transportation architect living and working in New York City.