Friday, August 26, 2016

LaGuardia traffic nightmare


From PIX11:

A massive construction project at LaGuardia Airport is creating massive traffic tie ups.

A $5.3 billion project to overhaul a terminal at the airport has travelers bailing from their cabs, luggage in hand, to walk to the airport.

"It was horrendous," said livery cab driver Cecil Craffy. "It’s the worst I’ve ever seen anywhere in the city. It took me an hour plus from the Grand Central to the corner and the customer had to come out of the car to walk to reach there."

The Port Authority's new temporary road ways, which are on the way this fall, will alleviate the worst of the traffic problems. But in the meantime, trips to the airport are taking a lot of time.

17 comments:

(sarc) said...

No bicycle lanes???

Joe Moretti said...

"The Port Authority's new temporary road ways, which are on the way this fall, will alleviate the worst of the traffic problems. "

I don't care what anyone says, NYC is the worst fucking city in this country, despite claims of being the "greatest city". FAR FROM IT just based on the quality of life for most people, not counting all the other crap, but here is a perfect example of how fucked up this city is and how much it could care less about it's people. Any other city would have had a contingency plan put in place BEFORE the construction,BUT not NYC, they are stating "on the way this fall", which more than likely means springtime if lucky.

Having been in most major cities in this country and having lived in other places, NYC is the most fucked up on so many different levels. Even their art and cultural scenes, sucks now and has for a couple of decades, perfect example, the dreck on Broadway and Off-Broadway, totally expensive over-bloated crap.

Anonymous said...

LGA really needed to be updated. It's quite the dump. Of all places, Detroit's airport is beautiful and yet we have LGA.

We need to push through the pain.

Anonymous said...

Northeast Queens has been leveled by NextGen over the past 4 years. oh, poor LaGuardia. Oh, the humanity.

Anonymous said...

Where are our elected officials on this??????? Why are they hiding?

Anonymous said...

> Joe Moretti

I've done work in planning for LGA in the past, and not to defend the PA, whom i loathe, but the logistics of the airport means this actually is the only way to do it.

The temp roads are "coming in the fall" are needed, and will help, but you cant install them overnight, and there is no spare space to build them that isnt aready being used by something else (the existing road, the terminal, the parking garages, etc).

LGA does not have the luxury of space. They could plan for 1,000 years and there is simply no way to do this work that isn't going to be painful.


The guy in the video talked about how "they need to do this in pieces, not all at once" well, they are doing this in pieces. this is a multi-phase project, which is why it will take so long and cost so much. Roadways, garages, terminal, concourses, etc, are all phased construction.

Keep in mind, the airport is mandated to keep 36 of the 38 gates at Terminal B open and operational at all times during the course of construction. The only way to do that is piece by piece.

Anonymous said...

The money to rebuild the outdated and too small LGA should have been used to build a new modern Airport.

Anonymous said...

Close LGA for a year and divert all traffic to the old Speed's Airpark, aka the Flushing Airport. Problems solved.

Joe Moretti said...

Anonymous said...

> Joe Moretti

I've done work in planning for LGA in the past, and not to defend the PA, whom i loathe, but the logistics of the airport means this actually is the only way to do it.

----------------

Then you have not done a bang up job in planning then, because there is no excuse for this happening in one of the major airports, no excuse. It is NOT the only way to do it, it was typical poor planning on the part of PA and the city, I don't care how little space there is. I have been threw there a few weeks ago and it was like the just said "fuck it" and did not one ounce of planning. Yes temp roads cannot be built overnight, hence why you PLAN this way before construction, which they did not.

Stop making excuses for this fucked up city.

Camel bladder said...

If there is no space to properly stage this work then the planing should have included stopping the cars and stopping the parking within the airport grounds for the duration of the work. Massive secure parking lots and taxi drop off points could be set up within a few miles of the airport and numerous, around the clock, frequent and FREE shuttle buses or vans should be provided. If they don't fix this shit it is only a matter of time before the horror stories begin to appear about people who got sick and died because an ambulance could not get through.
As a side thought, if I were a terrorist I could not think of a better place to make a huge mess than an airport road system clogged with a hundred thousand stranded traffic victims.

Anonymous said...

UNACCEPTABLE!

Anonymous said...

"The money to rebuild the outdated and too small LGA should have been used to build a new modern Airport."

Exactly. The surrounding areas are super congested as it is. What purpose does it serve to have an airport in the middle of one of the most populated areas in NYC?

Anonymous said...

Anon
Have you ever looked at Chicago's Midway Airport?

Anonymous said...

Build a new airport upstate with a high speed train to and from NYC ! Hey that would make too much sense and our local corrupted elected hacks would be against it because it would keep their greedy little fingers off the money.

JQ LLC said...


I can only say one thing that sums up the historic and perpetual tragedy and collective expansive stupidity of this wasteland airport in addition to the festering permanent government.

to paraphrase

We have met the enemy and it has always been us

Anonymous said...

Do not plan from flying out of LGA!
The last time I boarded a trip to DC,
it took me longer to get to the airport than the actual flight time.

Anonymous said...

Upgraded? LOL!
They have been systematically "upgrading" LGA for decades.
It needs to be closed off to ANYTHING but small commercial freight flights.
This was La Guardia Field...an antiquated spot for modern aircraft to land.
Witness all of those disasters at runway 13.
But it will never close. This is a money pit job security for the construction industry mob.
There will always be a job for anyone rebuilding LGA, forever!
Uh ...WTF is up with you "Quiet Skies" fools?
Perfected singing your Kumbaya yet?