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A comment on The Death and Life of Helicopter Commuting [video]. Parent comment

Re:The Death and Life of Helicopter Commuting [video] by CydeWeys on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @04:32PM (#15135754)
I live in Manhattan and it's an absolute joke that there isn't good mass transit to any of the three major airports in the area (Newark, JFK, and La Guardia). There are various air trams and buses and such, but none that are directly part of the mass transit system. Considering that NYC has the best mass transit in the country, you'd think it could take you to the airports, but nope! The best ways to get to the three are subway to regional rail for Newark, subway to air tram for JFK, and subway to bus for La Guardia (which has guaranteed terrible traffic pretty much always).

Contrast with Washington National Airport, which has a Metro station right at the airport.

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Re:The Death and Life of Helicopter Commuting [video] by alexhutcheson on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:31PM (#15136225)
Airports normally aren't the most valuable nodes to connect in a mass transit system, compared to other projects that could be accomplished with a similar amount of space and money. Alon Levy wrote a fairly detailed argument to that effect here: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2014/05/28/airport-connec...
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Re:The Death and Life of Helicopter Commuting [video] by CydeWeys on Thursday August 31, 2017 @01:15AM (#15138306)
There are 472 stops in the MTA subway system alone. Theoretical JFK and La Guardia stops would get more daily riders than the majority of the existing ones.

Airport connections tend to serve higher value riders too, so you make back more in total economic value to the city from airport riders than from riders at some random stop. This study is treating all riders as equal.

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Re:The Death and Life of Helicopter Commuting [video] by melling on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:41PM (#15136284)
According to the article:

"The mode of transportation that best suits the needs of international airports is then mainline rail."

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Re:The Death and Life of Helicopter Commuting [video] by alexhutcheson on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @07:18PM (#15136924)
Exactly, and mainline rail is not normally what people are referring to when they complain that the airports aren't connected to NYC's mass transit system.
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