(The following story by Joshua Robin appeared on the Newsday website on December 17.)
NEW YORK — Thirty-five feet above the Van Wyck Expressway, cruising along at 50 mph, the most unusual feeling settles in: pleasure at the sight of a clogged highway. Things look different from the window of an AirTrain car.
The postage-stamp yards and tiled roofs glide by while cars sputter bumper-to-bumper below. Horns and car alarms are inaudible; the only sounds are the trains hisses and hushes.
For a $5 fare, that is what the AirTrain, which opened to a thousand oohs and ahhs yesterday, will offer an estimated 34,000 daily riders. The service will also for the first time provide a direct rail link to Kennedy Airport, after a half-century of proposals.
“We made it, didn’t we?” said Charles Gargano, the vice chairman of the Port Authority, which built the $1.9 billion, 8.1-mile loop. “Because today, it is done.”
Yet officials at a ceremony marking the opening made clear that they were committed to making Kennedy even more mass-transit accessible.
“The next step is you’re going to be able to get on the train in lower Manhattan, or get on the train in Midtown Manhattan, and get off at your terminal,” Gov. George Pataki said.
Pataki later dismissed a plan proposed Tuesday by Sen. Charles Schumer to use federal money provided to the state after Sept. 11 to pay for a direct rail link to Kennedy from lower Manhattan.
“I would appreciate it if those in senior positions in the Senate delivered more money instead of telling us what to do with the money that we already got,” Pataki said. He added that he was committed to a Lower Manhattan link, which his office is studying.
For its first eight hours Wednesday, the AirTrain was free and dozens of people passed through the gates — some bound for travel, others merely curious. The free shuttle buses were still running yesterday, but as of midnight AirTrain will be riders’ only option.
Among the passengers were Astha Ghai of the Upper East Side and Amit Kalra of Woodside, bound together for Italy. “The only thing that’s an inconvenience is walking up the stairs,” said Kalra, 25, referring to the subway stairs in Jamaica, which by this summer will be replaced by an elevator.
The couple thought a train originating in Manhattan would be better than one requiring transfers in Queens. But both were pleased with the current AirTrain. Ghai, 22, a graduate student, said she might even consider riding the AirTrain and forgoing taxis — as long as she wasn’t carting a big suitcase.