I fully support reducing car traffic in Manhattan. Free street parking in particular needs to go. Why we're subsidizing car ownership when you live in Manhattan is absolutely beyond me. Walk down any street in Greenwich Village and look at how expensive the cars are parked on the street. That's what we're subsidizing.
But there's a problem: the 3 airports (JFK, LaGuardia and Neward) have fairly terrible transit options. So to get from Midtown to JFK, you need to get on the E line, get off at Jamaica and then catch the AirTrain. If you're at Termiannl 8, the AirTrain part takes like 20-25 minutes by itself. And it's expensive. If you don't happen to be on that line you first need to get to it. Alternatively you can get to Penn STation and catch the LIRR to Jamaica and still take the AirTrain. So you migh tneed to take 3 trains.
Why are the transit options awful? Because airports make too much money from parking and no government is going to mandate or pay for good transit options. There should really be an express train from JFK into Grand Central and Penn Station (and ideally across the Hudson into New Jersey).
Ubers and taxis will be paying this $15 charge so that will bring the cost to pretty close to $100 each way from Midtown to JFK. NYC already tacks on a lot of taxes and fees onto Ubers making them so incredibly expensive. I can remember trips 10 years ago that were $16 that are now closer to $40.
If you buy a parking space for your car in Manhattan it's realistically going to cost $300/month, minimum. Possibly $500+/month. Street parking should cost $20/day, minimum.
And in an ideal world, the Subway would also be free.
So while I support this, it's glossing over huge systemic problems and inequity and doing nothing to the massive gifts we continue to give the already wealthy.
If you're coming or going with a lot of luggage this is incredibly unwieldy
> Ubers and taxis will be paying this $15 charge so that will bring the cost to pretty close to $100 each way from Midtown to JFK.
Isn't it $15/day? Amortized over a couple of airport round trips, I doubt it would make a big difference.
> NYC already tacks on a lot of taxes and fees onto Ubers making them so incredibly expensive. I can remember trips 10 years ago that were $16 that are now closer to $40.
Which is generally the right way to go, in my view – taxis and Ubers shouldn't ever be a cost-efficient alternative to public transit in a city as large and dense as New York.
What's ridiculous about the AirTrain is that it's paid when connecting to the subway, while it's completely free (as far as I know) for private cars to pick up or drop off passengers at the terminal. That's just the wrong incentive.
> I can remember trips 10 years ago that were $16 that are now closer to $40.
This is everywhere. I think Uber stopped subsidizing rides so much. For a while it wasn’t that much more than the gas + wear & tear to drive yourself. Totally wild. I’d use them all the time because they were stupid-cheap. Now they cost almost as much as a taxi, and there’s a reason I’d hardly used taxis in my life at all before Uber.
Hugely agree on transit access to the airport, but it has gotten somewhat better. The GCT Madison connection has enabled another connection to Jamaica for the JFK AirTrain alongside LIRR and the E-train. And no longer do you need a separate MetroCard, as the Port Authority has finally modernized with contactless payments.
And the Q60 bus serving LGA also couldn't be easier. It picks up from a clearly designated spot on the lower level and drops you off right at Jackson Heights for E and 7 access. Could there be a direct rail connection a la O'Hare? Yes, and there should be.
Quite often taking a car took longer for me, including finding my Uber or Lyft in a sea of others (great system, really, requiring everybody to find "theirs" when they're all pretty much doing the same thing!), navigating cancellations etc.
Of course, if you live far from public transit it's a different matter, but many people in NY do live close to a subway station.
The only time I was late to JFK was the one time I tried to get there by car and ended up on a ramp in Queens, completely stationary, for over 2 hours.
But there's a problem: the 3 airports (JFK, LaGuardia and Neward) have fairly terrible transit options. So to get from Midtown to JFK, you need to get on the E line, get off at Jamaica and then catch the AirTrain. If you're at Termiannl 8, the AirTrain part takes like 20-25 minutes by itself. And it's expensive. If you don't happen to be on that line you first need to get to it. Alternatively you can get to Penn STation and catch the LIRR to Jamaica and still take the AirTrain. So you migh tneed to take 3 trains.
Why are the transit options awful? Because airports make too much money from parking and no government is going to mandate or pay for good transit options. There should really be an express train from JFK into Grand Central and Penn Station (and ideally across the Hudson into New Jersey).
Ubers and taxis will be paying this $15 charge so that will bring the cost to pretty close to $100 each way from Midtown to JFK. NYC already tacks on a lot of taxes and fees onto Ubers making them so incredibly expensive. I can remember trips 10 years ago that were $16 that are now closer to $40.
If you buy a parking space for your car in Manhattan it's realistically going to cost $300/month, minimum. Possibly $500+/month. Street parking should cost $20/day, minimum.
And in an ideal world, the Subway would also be free.
So while I support this, it's glossing over huge systemic problems and inequity and doing nothing to the massive gifts we continue to give the already wealthy. If you're coming or going with a lot of luggage this is incredibly unwieldy