JFK reno will happen without a new runway

From the Wall Street Journal:

In the coming weeks, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to announce details of a $10 billion face-lift for one of America’s busiest airports.

The plan is expected to provide upgrades to John F. Kennedy International Airport, in Queens, including new roads for motorists, improved taxiways for aircraft and a modern, more consolidated terminal layout.

But it won’t include one element that planners say is essential to handling rising demand in the coming decades: a new runway.

Replacing Rikers

From Crains:

The most feasible location to boost flights is LaGuardia Airport, by building a new runway on Rikers Island in place of the jail complex that the city hopes to close within 10 years. The plan, a recommendation of the Rikers Commission, would involve laying another strip of tarmac on the reclaimed isle and connecting it to a new terminal next to the existing airport. Because Rikers is more than 400 acres, other infrastructure uses often loathed by residential neighborhoods could be sited there with 
little fuss. A waste treatment, composting or waste-to-energy plant could help the city make serious strides toward its environmental goals, Torres Springer said, and a solar energy farm could produce and store hundreds of megawatts of power.

From DNA Info:

A plan to close Rikers Island unveiled Thursday won't happen without the support of local city council members willing to clear the way for local jails in their districts, the mayor said on WNYC's Brian Lehrer's show.

The 85-year-old jail has been plagued by concerns for inmate mistreatment and deaths, security issues and mismanagement, won't close without new satellite jails, Mayor Bill de Blasio, said Thursday morning.

While de Blasio's ten-year-plan included a combination of criminal justice reforms to drive down the city's inmate population by making it easier to pay bail, investing more in mental health programs and decreasing crime rates, details of the satellite jails are conspicuously absent.

The mayor put the onus squarely on neighborhood NIMBYs.

"We're going keep driving [the inmate population] down with every tool we have, but we can't get off Rikers, unless there are specific places where the local leadership accept a jail facility," he said. "It just cannot happen without a vote of the City Council."

In March of 2016, DNAinfo exclusively reported that the city was quietly eyeing several sites for new satellite jails including locations in Hunts Point in the Bronx, in College Point in Queens, at 287 Maspeth Ave. on a vacant lot owned by National Grid in East Williamsburg, at 803 Forbell St. in East New York and at two sites on Staten Island.

JFK runway to be shut down for 6 months

From AM-NY:

The Port Authority has shut down one of four runways at Kennedy Airport for six months so workers can repave and expand it, officials said Monday night at a monthly meeting in Hempstead designed to address concerns about aircraft noise.

The $450 million project also includes lengthening the runway, known as 4L/22R, by 1,000 feet to meet federal safety standards and widening it from 150 to 200 feet to accommodate larger aircraft, said John Selden, the deputy general manager at Kennedy during a meeting of the Towns-Village Aircraft Safety and Noise Abatement Committee.

The Port Authority, which operates the airport, will also construct additional high-speed taxiways, which Selden told the committee would lead to fewer flight delays.

Southeast Queens residents fight back against JFK

From AM-NY:

A coalition of civic groups in Queens seeking to stop a project to upgrade and modify a Kennedy Airport runway has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in Manhattan to order the airport operator to conduct a full environmental impact study.

The Eastern Queens Alliance, representing residents of southeast Queens, said the Port Authority's proposal to widen Runway 4L/22R and construct 728 feet of new pavement on the north end would put departing and arriving airplanes closer to homes, schools, churches and businesses.

Jets taking off and landing nearer to where children study and people live, work and worship would undoubtedly bring more noise and air pollution to neighborhoods that are already inundated with them, said the coalition's chairwoman, Barbara E. Brown of Brookville, Queens.

"The noise pollution is already bad, and to tell me a little more noise is not going to impact me is ludicrous," Brown said Tuesday in an interview.

The Port Authority declined to comment Tuesday, but in its reply to the lawsuit filed in September, the agency said its plan to extend Runway 4L/22R to 12,079 feet from its current 11,351 feet and widen it to 200 feet from 150 feet is necessary to meet design standards set by the Federal Aviation Administration. The wider runway would accommodate larger aircraft such as the Airbus A380, a double-decker widebody jet that is currently the world's largest passenger airliner.

The FAA requires runways to have a buffer zone, referred to as runway safety area, to lessen the risk of damage to property and injury to passengers in the event an aircraft overruns, undershoots, or is forced to leave the runway. The Port Authority has until Dec. 31, 2015, to bring Runway 4L/22R into compliance.

Report says that Port Authority needs to expand airports

From Crains:

The two international airports in Queens rev up that borough's economy to almost rival Manhattan's, but further growth will require new infrastructure investments that remain uncertain at best.

LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports generated $42.4 billion in economic activity in 2012, according to a recent report from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, and directly employed 46,000 people, more than half of whom live in Queens. That translates to 9.5% of the borough's private-sector employment. Indirectly, the airports are responsible for about 300,000 jobs.

With passenger traffic growing, the air transportation sector is a key component of the borough's recovery from the recession, the comptroller notes. Unemployment fell to 8% in October, higher than Manhattan and Staten Island, but beating out Brooklyn and the Bronx, while private-sector jobs climbed to 486,000. The borough's average salary of $44,350 is second only to Manhattan's.

"There is a capacity problem at JFK — you have more airplanes trying to land at the peak time than you have ability to handle them," said Joshua Schank, president and chief executive at the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank. "That is the biggest constraint on growth, and new terminals don't really help it."

A recent Eno Center report projected that by 2030, JFK will be operating above its capacity the majority of each day. A separate report from the Regional Plan Association estimated that the region will lose out on $26 billion in annual economic activity by 2030 unless major changes are undertaken at all three Port Authority facilities.

The Regional Plan Association argues that a new JFK runway would be the best way to address the issue — no small task. The updated navigation systems being slowly implemented by the Federal Aviation Administration would also help, according to Mr. Schank, but all of these ideas would need to be implemented by the public sector and, for now, are nowhere near takeoff.

Airport security catching 40 winks on the job

From CBS New York:

Protecting some of the world’s most strategically important sites in the New York area – including the airports, bridges and the new World Trade Center and memorial site – is a matter of vital concern and large sums of money.

But as CBS 2’s Steve Langford reported, a series of stunning security blunders at John F. Kennedy International Airport in particular is raising more questions about just how secure the sites are.

The private security firm that has a big contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is again getting the blame for the problems.

In March, a private security guard employed by the company, FJC security, was spotted fast asleep. The company is paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the Port Authority to help protect sensitive sites such as JFK.

And the trend was not an isolated incident, said former FJC Security Manager Stephen Jackson.

“I found several there sleeping — one female at night I photographed, but I found this gentleman there twice during broad daylight,” Jackson said.

Jackson said he shot video and took photos of two security guards ostensibly watching Jamaica Bay at Kennedy Airport, when a man managed to land his jet ski at JFK, and cross two active runways, without being stopped in August of last year.

“I was told: ‘Don’t show it to me. I don’t want to see it, because if I see it, I have to deal with it,” Jackson said.

Port Authority forgets to inform community about JFK runway expansion

From the Queens Courier:

John F. Kennedy International Airport has some angry neighbors to the north, thanks to a proposed plan by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to extend a runway closer to a nearby residential community.

The Port Authority, under Federal Aviation Association (FAA) guidelines, wishes to widen JFK runway 4L/22R by roughly 200 feet, and expand it to the north. This change will allow the runway to accommodate larger aircraft carrying more passengers, according to Port Authority officials. Also, officials said, JFK would potentially experience a significant reduction in flight delays.

However, Queens residents are concerned with the noise and air pollution they expect the expansion to bring, mainly to the Springfield Gardens community.

...Eastern Queens Alliance also accused the Port Authority of not making the local community aware of the proposed change, instead warning the residents in Nassau County.

Locals upset about JFK runway plan

From the Queens Tribune:

The Jamaica Bay Task Force, a group of private citizens and organizations concerned about the bay, met April 7 at the American Legion Hall in Broad Channel to discuss the potential the RPA's plan has to damage the ecological makeup of Jamaica Bay. The meeting was attended by more than 150 residents and civic leaders, including U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Kew Gardens), who flew back to New York from Washington D.C. during last week's budget negotiations just to make an appearance at the meeting.

Don Riepe of the American Littoral Society showed photos of birds and animals that live 150 yards or less from the airport. Some of them live and thrive along the boundaries of the airport. The bird populations, he said, could interfere with air traffic coming in and out of new runways in nesting areas.

Capt. Vincent Calabro, a fisherman who fishes in Jamaica Bay, fought the labeling of Grassy Bay as "dead," showing pictures of fish he has caught within yards of JFK, including two-to-three-foot-long striped bass, flounder and fluke.

Besides environmental concerns, some were worried about noise issues and the potential for disasters like the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 into a Rockaway neighborhood in 2001. One proposal calls for a new runway to be constructed on the west side of JFK that would send air traffic directly over Broad Channel at low altitudes, a problem that has already plagued Howard Beach, South Ozone Park, Rosedale and the Rockaways.

The implementation of NextGen, new air traffic control technology, will allow planes to fly closer together, meaning planes would be flying over residential neighborhoods as often as every 30 seconds.

Photo by godsavebklyn on Flickr