December 17, 2003
Air Train Up and Running
New York finally gets its air train but it's not all it's cracked up to be: To take the Air Train, you need to take the subway, bus or LIRR to Jamaica or Howard Beach, and then you can take the Air Train to Kennedy. Ack. According to the brochure, taking the Air Train from Penn Station in Manhattan to Kennedy (E Train, then Air Train) will take you about 60 minutes and set you back $7 ($2 for the subway, $5 for the Air Train); from uptown Manhattan via the A (125th Street), it'll take you 85 minutes, from downtown Manhattan via the J (Canal Street), it'll take 75. But for $11.75, taking the LIRR from Penn Station and Air Training it to Kennedy only clocks in at 35 minutes. This will be the NYC microversion of wondering what's faster NY to Washington DC: Acela, plane or car.
The Port Authority calls it "your connection to the World" and there is a spiffy map showing you the loop of terminals it makes.
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I tried the air train to Newark Airport and found it to be very convenient. I took a 20 minute NJTransit ride from Penn to the second stop in NJ. it was about 30 minutes all-in-all. when things work, they work pretty well.
The Newark train is ok if you make it, but it doesn't run that often so if you make the train, you have to wait another 20-30 minutes. And to return, if you flight gets in on a weekend or evening, the trains run even more infrequently.
As for the comparison of travel times to DC, I did many similar ones between Boston and NYC - by public transportation, I found the bus to be cheapest and fastest (~4 hrs). Pre Acela, it was about a 5 hr train ride, and 4 times the price, to pretty much the same place in the city. And the plane was about an hour, but you needed to leave at least 1 1/2 hrs ahead of time to make sure you got there on time, and on both ends, it takes quite a while to get back.
True Red...but the Newark deal takes you from where it's convenient (NJT) to where you actually want to go. Why take a subway to Northeast Queens which is all the way out of the way? They should have spent a little more money and made the direct connection to Manhattan. NYC still has some of the worst airport transportation in the country. I'd also like to see the 7 train extended to LGA but that's wishful thinking.
Okay, THAT makes sense: $5 for the dinky little distance between Howard Beach and the airport proper? Won't there still be shuttle buses that run out there?
Actually, I believe the Howard Beach leg is free... Only the Jamaica section costs anything.
(for JFK at least)
Nope, the Howard Beach leg costs too, and they got rid of the free shuttle bus. Ripoff.
Amazingly, though, updated signs are already up at Hoyt-Schermerhorn.
Mike C -- I don't think you can exalt the connection from NJT to Newark Airtrain while being unhappy with the connection from three separate subway lines _and_ the LIRR to the JFK Airtrain; the latter is clearly more convenient. And Jamaica is actually more or less on the way to JFK from Midtown (it's hardly "Northeast Queens").
yeah, and if you're in nj, the train to newark doesn't help much unless you're on that line, because otherwise, you need to go into the city to get out again.