Senator Jessica Ramos and Councilman Costa Constantinides. Photo: Angélica Acevedo/QNS
Two Queens lawmakers say they won’t
support the current plan for LGA AirTrain
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
Two Queens elected officials
have taken a stance
against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s
current plan for the LGA Air-
Train.
Senator Jessica Ramos and
Councilman Costa Constantinides
told QNS that they’re
concerned the current $2 billion
plan to build an air train
from Willets Point to LaGuardia
Airport terminals might
cause detrimental damage to
Queens’ northwestern communities.
“Albany has neglected
transportation issues in
Queens’ working class communities
for far too long,”
Ramos said. “While the state
funnels $2 billion into the
AirTrain, the BQE is falling
apart and our transit system
is failing. This money would
be better spent improving our
infrastructure and providing
better transportation alternatives
for the people who make
Queens thrive.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll
say it again: Without a comprehensive
plan for the people
in our East Elmhurst community,
I cannot in good conscience
support the LGA Air-
Train,” Ramos added.
Constantinides, who’s the
chair of the Committee on Environmental
Protection in the
City Council and is running
for Queens borough president,
raised concerns over the environmental
aspects of the current
plan.
“The current proposed
route for the AirTrain poses
major environmental threats
to Flushing Bay and Creek, as
Riverkeeper and the Guardians
of Flushing Bay have
made clear,” Constantinides
said. “I hope the Port Authority
TIMESLEDGER | 2 QNS.COM | FEB. 14-20, 2020
can re-explore some of the
alternative paths it seems to
have overlooked. We need
to move people to and from
LaGuardia Airport, but it
cannot be at the expense
of our already precious
ecosystem.”
Their response comes a
few days after Rick Cotton,
the executive director of the
Port Authority, defended the
current LGA AirTrain plan in
a Daily News editorial. Cotton
wrote that the plan was “the
best, most practical and most
environmentally friendly way
to get to LGA.”
The Port Authority believes
the current plan will not only
encourage people to get out of
their cars, but also give travelers
and LGA employees a more
direct and efficient way to get
to the airport. A Better Way
to LGA, a coalition of Queens
businesses, previously told
QNS that the plan “creates
good-paying union jobs, and
won’t tear our neighbors from
their homes.”
Although some Queens
elected officials who represent
the northwestern side of the
borough have addressed Gov.
Cuomo’s AirTrain plan when
it was first introduced in 2015,
most of them haven’t officially
stated what they think of the
current plan for the project.
In January, Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
sent a letter to the Federal
Aviation Agency (FAA), which
conducted the review of the
plan as well as 46 alternatives,
in which she questioned its
evaluation of the current plan
despite the many alternatives
brought up by the community
and the study’s note that 255
out of 414 comments were in
opposition to that route.
A spokesperson for Ocasio-
Cortez and a Port Authority
spokesperson said they have
not received a response from
the FAA.
At an FAA meeting that
same month, FAA Regional
Environmental Program Manager
Andrew Brooks pointed
out that infrastructure challenges
like creating new tunnels
or elevated tracks will
escalates the price tag, which
was one reason they thought
other alternatives wouldn’t
work.
A Port Authority spokesperson
told QNS that “the
FAA will hold more public
information sessions on the
environmental review of the
AirTrain project later this
year and Port Authority staff
will continue to attend local
community meetings to
update residents and answer
questions about the airport
redevelopment project.”
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