JFK Train Construction On A Fast Track

The rapid pace of this massive project has become New York City’s best kept secret.
During The Queens Courier’s on-site visit to JFK last week, work crews were busily putting the final touches on a reinforced concrete el train structure that nearly joined the IND’s Howard Beach station.
Port Authority (PA) work crews have been actively building the initial phase of the $1.5 billion "train to the plane" since September 1990. They have already driven 85 percent of all support piles, completed 70 percent of the pile caps, and have finished 60 percent of the huge wide-topped main columns that support the train trestles.
Neatly spaced, these columns are 100 feet apart and stand 45 feet high. They have been chemically treated to make them graffiti-resistant, since PA rules require the scribbling to be removed within 48 hours.
On top of these thick posts, workers are affixing pre-fabbed, funnel-shaped, units which are then linked together with tensioned cables and epoxy. PA engineers say that his will not only make the structure stronger, but will also help reduce train noise.
Work schedules call for airport and Howard Beach segments to be completed by late 2002, and the link to the Jamaica station to be completed a year later.
The new line will be geared to accommodate an estimated 34,000 daily passengers to and from the 5,000-acre JFK, which is equivalent in size to the lower half of Manhattan from Central Park South to the Battery.
Despite this speedy preliminary work, key to the success of the project is the simultaneous preparation of the Van Wyck Expressway for the installation of huge train support columns in its center median, which will carry the trains above the overpasses.
To provide three continuous working lanes on this busy roadway, work crews are now busily constructing an additional traffic lane in each direction so that full roadway capacity can be maintained while the center lane is closed down.
Operating in a huge two-mile circle, the electric-powered light-rail system will provide direct links to the airport’s passenger terminals as well as to its long-term parking lots, car rental areas, and off-airport transit connections.
Equally important, a 3.3 mile spur will connect the airport with the Howard Beach IND A-train station, and a 3.1-mile line will travel to the jamaica station transportation complex, where air passengers can change to and from the LIRR, the E, J, Z subway lines and more than 40 bus lines.
Designed to cut heavy auto traffic to and from JFK by providing a speedy alternate route, the PA has designed AirTrain to carry 32 million passengers annually, which include its 40,000 airport employees.
Train travel will be rapid from the train line’s 10 glass-enclosed stations: Eight minutes to and from the Howard Beach and Jamaica train and bus depots, as well as around the airport loop.
In the center of JFK, other workers are readying installation of fifth-mile-long train tracks on a completed trestle. Originally 72 feet long, the smaller units have been welded together to ensure a smoother and less noisy ride.
Local critics of the project say that it is flawed because it does not give travelers a one-seat ride to and from the airport. Councilwoman Julia Harrison (D-Flushing) disputes the PA’s rosy claims of a 34,000-a-day passenger volume on their AirTrain, and predicts that 8,000 daily passengers would be more realistic.
"This train line is inadequate," said Harrison, "because it does not reflect passenger needs." She said that Queens residents suffer the most because AirTrain, which runs entirely in Queens, will not serve any local community through which it runs.