(The following article by Pete Donohue was posted on the New York Daily News website on February 4.)
NEW YORK — Long-awaited plans for a train that would whisk airport travelers and suburbanites to lower Manhattan will be unveiled today, and officials vow they won’t railroad subway riders.
Two of the four proposals for a Kennedy Airport and Long Island commuter train use East River subway tunnels, which has prompted fear it will cause delays for straphangers.
But a top planning official pledged yesterday the train-to-the-plane won’t slow down city commuters.
Gov. Pataki, who has made the project a priority, has said a final option will be chosen in April.
“It’s our objective to ensure there is little or no disruption to existing subway ridership,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “This is not an afterthought. It’s a central objective of the study.”
Sources described some of the options that will be unveiled today by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority and the city.
The proposals all offer one-seat rides from the airport to downtown, using AirTrain tracks from JFK to Jamaica, then to lower Manhattan via the Long Island Rail Road’s Atlantic Ave. branch.
Some express trains could bypass Jamaica and go directly from JFK to lower Manhattan.
The plans also call for creating express trains connecting Jamaica to downtown Manhattan. The differences:
* Plan A: Trains would tap into the A/C subway line in the area of the Atlantic Ave./Flatbush Terminal in Brooklyn and use the A/C subway tunnel to the Broadway/Fulton/Nassau St. subway complex or nearby.
The A/C tunnel option would force C trains to another tunnel and possibly disrupt the rides of thousands of subway riders – a concern for straphangers.
“It would be unfair, wrongheaded and political suicide,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said, calling that choice a longshot.
* Plan B: Trains would tap into the M/N/R subway line in the area of the Atlantic Ave./Flatbush Terminal and use the Montague St. tunnel to Manhattan. They would then take the J,M,Z line to the Broadway/Fulton/Nassau St. subway complex or nearby.
* Plan C: Trains would go through a new tunnel built near the Atlantic Ave./Flatbush Terminal and stretching under the river to the World Trade Center site. There would be a stop somewhere in downtown Brooklyn.
A fourth option will include some elements of the first three. Details could not be obtained yesterday.
The four options have projected costs ranging between $2 billion up to $8 billion.