(The following story by Joshua Robin appeared on Newsday?s website on December 3.)
NEW YORK — After years of false starts, setbacks and cost overruns, the AirTrain to Kennedy Airport is scheduled to open Dec. 17, Gov. George Pataki announced yesterday.
The 8.1-mile loop between Jamaica, Howard Beach and Kennedy Airport comes 30 years after it was first proposed.
The maiden voyage corresponds to the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight, a press release noted. The timing also makes this new mode of transport available just in time for travel to the airport during the holiday season.
“We are truly excited,” Pataki said in a statement, predicting the train will “soar over traffic.”
Officials estimate about 34,000 people will ride the driverless train daily, many of them airport employees. It will cost $5 for a single trip; monthly unlimited passes are available for $40.
Construction cost $1.9 billion – more than $400 million above what was anticipated in 1999.
The Port Authority, which runs Kennedy Airport, broke ground on the AirTrain project in Sept. 1998. Two years later, the project was set back on Sept. 27, 2002, when a worker was killed during a test run of the train. The train derailed, and he was crushed by concrete blocks used to simulate the weight of passengers.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded in April that the worker, Kelvin DeBourgh, Jr., rounded a curve too quickly – he was traveling about 55 miles per hour on a curve designed to handle no faster than 25. Investigators blamed a lack of training and poor communication for the deadly accident.
DeBourgh’s sister said in a brief telephone call that she was too emotional to discuss the opening.
A lawyer representing them, Douglas Milch, said: “We have serious doubts as to the public safety of this system. If we have no faith or confidence in manual testing of the AirTrain, how can you have faith or confidence for the safety of the general public in an automated system?”
The family is suing the Port Authority and companies working on AirTrain for $100 million. There have been no talks of settlement, Milch said.
A spokesman for the Port Authority, Pasquale DiFulco, extended his condolences to DeBourgh’s family and said the agency had donated $2,000 to an organization at DeBourgh’s high school.
DiFulco said he did not know whether there would be a plaque honoring DeBourgh at the airport or along the AirTrain route.