JFK Airtrain: Good News, Bad News, Good News and Bad News
Arnold Reinhold
check out the new, long-awaited Airtrain at John F. Kennedy
International Airport in Queens. There is good news, bad news, more
good news and more bad news about this project.
The good news is that the JFK AirTrain is a massive, efficient,
attractive system that fills a major hole in the New York City
transportation grid. The bad new is that it is far more difficult to
use the JFK Airtrain than it should be. The good news is that simple,
inexpensive steps could remedy many of the usability issues. The bad
new is that responsibility is so fragmented that nothing may be done.
Two billion dollars well spent
The JFK AirTrain is a project that New York City should be proud of.
It provides a fast, frequent, and quiet ride between the eight airline
terminals at Kennedy, a rental car center, long term parking and not
one, but two mass transit facilities. The AirTrain stations have
automatic doors that line up with the doors on the cars, so travelers
stand in a comfortable, indoor space while waiting for their train.
The cars are well lit and have plenty of space for luggage and even
luggage carts. Since the AirTrain is fully automated, there is no cab
for an engineer. Instead a picture window allows passengers to see
where the train is going.
AirTrain is now the primary way JFK travelers move between terminals
to make connecting flights. It also replaces the swarm of car rental
vans and brings people to the long term parking lot. These internal
airport rides are free and are expected to be the most common use of
Airtrain. Trips to either transit station cost $5. Subway or commuter
rail fare is extra. Airport workers can buy a monthly pass for $40.
There are ample automated ticket machines at both transit stations.
Can we make Airtrain harder to use?
There is an old adage: never ascribe to malfeasance what can be
adequately explained by incompetence. None the less, I can't help
wondering if there isn't a conspiracy to keep Airtrain ridership down.
Perhaps officials are still pouting because the JFK Airtrain doesn't
provide a "one seat ride" to Manhattan. It doesn't cure cancer either.
Whatever its merits, it's built, it cost a lot of public money, and it
should be utilized to the greatest possible extent. Here is a summary
of the problems I found.
Problems at Penn Station
The best connections to the JFK AirTrain from Manhattan are from Penn
Station, the busiest train station in North America. From there you
can take either the NYC Subway or a Long Island Railroad commuter
train to the Jamaica AirTrain terminus. The subway is less expensive
but takes longer.
Yet there is almost no hint in the entire Penn Station complex that a
link to JFK even exists. All I could find was one blue banner hanging
in the Long Island Railroad waiting area deep in the bowels of the
station. The information booth in the main rotunda still has a big
sign advertising bus service to JFK and Laguardia Airports.
By contrast, the rail service to Newark Airport, also called AirTrain,
is prominently advertised. I found three Newark AirTrain kiosks in the
Amtrak/New Jersey Transit area, each with an ample supply of leaflets
describing only the Newark service. On the main display board, trains
that stop at the new Newark Airport station, where passengers transfer
to the Airtrain monorail, are clearly marked. By contrast, the LIRR
has not modified any of its train displays to include mention of JFK.
Amtrak also ignores the JFK Airtrain. Amtrak's Web site makes no
mention of JFK. Yet with a little effort, Amtrak could develop a
thriving airline connection sub-market on its Northeast corridor,
which has rail connections to Baltimore-Washington, Boston, Islip,
JFK, Newark, Philadelphia, and Washington National airports.
Penn Station's favorable treatment of the Newark AirTrain while
ignoring the JFK AirTrain is hard to justify. Both involve taking a
commuter train to a stop near the airport and then transferring to an
airport circulation system for rides to the individual terminals. The
ride from Penn Station to the Newark Airport station takes 25 minutes.
It's only 20 minutes from Penn Station to Jamaica. Ticket prices are
about the same. Jamaica LIRR trains are more frequent than Newark
Airport trains and JFK handles slightly more traffic than Newark (31.5
Million passengers per year vs 29.5).
Problems at Jamaica
The new AirTrain terminal at Jamaica is a bright, attractive space.
Connections from the LIRR are simple. There are well-marked stairs and
elevators at the west end of the LIRR platforms that lead up one level
to the AirTrain upper lobby and center platform. Direct connections to
the subway station are still under construction, so for now you have
to exit the subway and walk around the block under the LIRR tracks to
the impressive AirTrain street entrance.
When you arrive at the AirTrain lobby at Jamaica, you are confronted
with a bank of eight automated MetroCard ticket machines. There are no
fare booth on the automated AirTrain system. Six airline check-in
positions have been installed, but none are in use.
The displays on the MetroCard machines will confuse many visitors.
Someone who simply wants to get to the airport has to wade through
seven levels of screen to buy a ticket:
1. Touch Start to Begin [this screen is only in English]
2. Which Language? English / Spanish / French / German / Chinese /
Italian / Japanese / Korean
[The choices are at least labelled in the actual language, e.g.
Deutch]
3. Please select card type: MetroCard / SmartLink
[There is no further explanation for this confusing choice. SmartLink
is a monthly pass for New Jersey Transit and Newark Airport. How many
New Yorkers know this, much less visitors from out of town?]
4. Refill your card / Get card info/ New card
5. Regular MetroCard / AirTrain 30 day $40
6. $5 JFK / $7 JFK + Subway/ $10 / $20 / Other amount
7. Cash / ATM / Credit
See http://www.railfanwindow.com/gallery/album69 for some screen
photos.
Remember this is in the upper lobby facing the ticket gates to the
AirTrain. Most visitors at this point simply want to buy a $5 ticket
to JFK. A menu item marked "$5 JFK" could easily be displayed on the
third screen.
On the other side of the fare gate, there are eight more MetroCard
machines and two LIRR ticket machines. I did not actually try it, but
I fear that a traveler wanting to get to Manhattan from JFK via the
faster LIRR route must negotiate two ticket machines, one to get out
of the Airtrain and the other to buy a ticket for the train. Why not
a one-ticket ride? The airport side of the Airtrain lobby would also
be an ideal place to sell visitors a combine MetroCard with a round
trip ticket on Airtrain and a one-week pass on the subway.
Problems on the AirTrain
The AirTrain itself is not as user friendly as it might be. Stops are
announced in English inside the cars, but only the airport terminal
number is given. There is a smallish card on each car listing the
eight terminals and the airlines they serve.
Howard Beach
Howard Beach is where the Airtrain connects with the subway A train.
Again there are banks of MetroCard machines. Here, the logical choice
for almost all travelers (the exceptions are people who live in or are
visiting the small Howard Beach community) is $7 JFK + Subway. To get
to the subway, you have to go through two sets of ticket gates about
20 feet apart, one to leave the airport and one to enter the subway.
The subway station is an open platform, but the station designers
provided a window at the enclosed upper level from which you can see
the train approaching.
Cheap ways to make AirTrain easier to use
Here are some simple ways ways to make AirTrain more usable. Some
require an modest investment in time or money, but many are
essentially free.
At Penn Station
o Include "JFK" in LIRR train announcements.
The public address announcements for trains that stop at Jamaica
usually end with "Change at Jamaica for..." followed by a long list of
stations. Why not include "JFK" in that list? All it would take is a
"make it so" phone call from LIRR management.
o Add "JFK" to Jamaica sign over Penn Station LIRR next train display
There is a large display over the LIRR ticket windows that lists, in
alphabetical order, each station on the LIRR, followed by time and
track number for the next train to that station. The times and tracks
change, of course, but the station names are fixed, so it would be
very easy to add the letters "JFK" after the word "Jamaica." This
would be a huge aid for travelers unfamiliar with New York.
o Stock AirTrain-JFK leaflets at existing AirTrain-Newark kiosks
There are several kiosks at Penn Station advertising AirTrain Newark,
each filled with flyers for the Newark service. All it would take is
slapping on a decal that says "JFK" next to the word "Newark" and
devoting half the shelves to JFK AirTrain Flyers.
o Make sure the rotunda Information boot staff is cool with the JFK
AirTrain
There should be a supply of LIRR Jamaica schedules in stock at the
booth. Lose the bus sign.
o Display JFK AirTrain info in the main Amtrak NJT waiting area
There is an auxiliary display board next to the main train listings
that is used for special advisories. Usually it tells people not to
leave baggage unattended. It could direct JFK passengers to the LIRR,
perhaps "For JFK Airport connections follow signs to LIRR."
o Put up some signs directing travelers to the JFK Airtrain
Connections between NJ Transit and the LIRR should also be
facilitated.
o Modify LIRR video displays
The New Jersey Transit displays include the letters "EWR" (the
international airport code for Newark) next to every train that stops
at the Newark Airport Station. The LIRR should modify its video
display system to add "JFK" next to each train that stops at Jamaica.
o Place a MetroCard vending machine in Amtrak/NJT lobby
o Place an LIRR train display monitor in the Amtrak/NJT waiting area
Or alternately, a monitor showing the next train to JFK. This could be
accomplished by pointing a video camera at the Jamaica next train
display described above.
At Jamaica and Howard Beech
o Easier ticketing
The MetroCard machines at Jamaica and Howard Beach should be fixed to
simplify purchase of the most common tickets, eliminating the current
seven screen mess. It should also be possible to issue a single ticket
that covers the JFK Airtrain and the LIRR to Penn Station. Making
travelers to Manhattan navigate two separate ticket machines pretty
much eliminates the time saving over just taking the subway, for which
there already is a single ticket option. A single ticket between JFK
and Newark Airport should also be feasible.
o Help travelers figure out their terminal
There should be flight displays at the Jamaica and Howard Beach
AirTrain terminals (if there were any, I missed them). The information
card on the AirTrain cars should be bigger and alphabetized by airline
name instead of terminal number.
o Place subway and LIRR maps in the Airtrain terminals
Hopefully the new subway maps showing revised routes over the newly
reopened Manhattan bridge will also show the AirTrain routes. Even
better would be a special map showing the best connections from
Manhattan to JFK. The map should show estimated travel times and
clearly indicate cross-platform connections and handicapped accessible
stations, a big plus for people with luggage.
o The A trains that service the Howard Beach Station should have some
clear airport marking. I suspect the a train fleet is still equipped
with the old "Train to the Plane" signs. It might make sense to use
them again.
Who is in charge?
While the steps listed above are mostly cheap and easy to implement,
figuring out the agency responsible is a challenge. For example,
AirTrain is owned by the Port Authority, Penn Station is owned by
Amtrak. The LIRR and NYC subway both run trains that connect Penn
Station with JFK Airtrain (they are part of the same agency, the MTA,
but have incompatible ticketing). Transfers to Newark Airport also
involve New Jersey Transit.
I can only hope some political leader will take charge and whip this
alphabet soup of agencies into shape.
Arnold Reinhold
K
and the information is wonderful.
"Arnold Reinhold" <rein...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:86035fb1.04021...@posting.google.com...
Thor Lancelot Simon
Arnold Reinhold <rein...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>The JFK AirTrain is a project that New York City should be proud of.
>It provides a fast, frequent, and quiet ride between the eight airline
>terminals at Kennedy, a rental car center, long term parking and not
>one, but two mass transit facilities. The AirTrain stations have
One of those mass transit facilities used to have *free*, regular,
quick shuttle-bus service to all areas at JFK. That shuttle bus
service was discontinued when the AirTrain came online. The result?
The AirTrain actually *increases* the cost and time required to
get from JFK to many parts of Manhattan -- any part served by the
"A" train of the subway system, and offers no improvement in
convenience whatsoever -- it's still a two-seat ride.
It just costs $7 now instead of $2. Yeah, that was worth spending
two billion dollars. *Sure* it was.
--
Thor Lancelot Simon t...@rek.tjls.com
But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common
objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You
plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud
Sancho Panza
"Arnold Reinhold" <rein...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:86035fb1.04021...@posting.google.com...
year vs 29.5).
That may be reversed:
JFK
1999
2000
2001
% Change2001/2000 Revenue Passengers (millions)31.732.929.4-10.6%
Aircraft Movement343,299 345,089 292,367 -15.3%
Cargo (tons)1,752,821 1,864,383 1,466,389 -21.3%
EWR
1999
2000
2001
% Change2001/2000Revenue Passengers (millions)33.634.230.5-10.8%
Aircraft Movement457,972 450,229 436,420 -3.1%
Cargo (tons)1,084,660 1,070,379 786,660 -26.5%
John Mara
"Arnold Reinhold" <rein...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:86035fb1.04021...@posting.google.com...
> Problems on the AirTrain
>
> The AirTrain itself is not as user friendly as it might be. Stops are
> announced in English inside the cars, but only the airport terminal
> number is given. There is a smallish card on each car listing the
> eight terminals and the airlines they serve.
Announcements in languages other than English would be a good idea but I'm
not sure what languages you would pick.
Terminal 4 serves more than 30 airlines. To announce them all would take a
while.
> Howard Beach
>
> Howard Beach is where the Airtrain connects with the subway A train.
> Again there are banks of MetroCard machines. Here, the logical choice
> for almost all travelers (the exceptions are people who live in or are
> visiting the small Howard Beach community) is $7 JFK + Subway. To get
> to the subway, you have to go through two sets of ticket gates about
> 20 feet apart, one to leave the airport and one to enter the subway.
There are two sets of fare gates as you leave the Airtrain. One set lets
you out of the Airtrain and into the subway and deducts $7 from your
MetroCard. These fare gates are in front of you as you come from the
Airtrain platform. The other set of fare gates lets you out out of the
Airtrain and deducts $5 from your MetroCard. These are off to the right.
People who have an unlimited ride MetroCard would want to use the second set
of faregates and then use their unlimited card to enter the subway.
John Mara
Miguel Cruz
> While attending the Linux World trade show in Manhattan, I decided to
> check out the new, long-awaited Airtrain at John F. Kennedy
> International Airport in Queens. There is good news, bad news, more
> good news and more bad news about this project.
Thanks for a very thoiughtful post; I hope you take it a step further and
forward this on to the relevant authorities (of which there are many).
One thing that may help understand the difference in signage at Penn Station
is that New Jersey Transit (which runs trains to Newark's AirTrain) is a
different entity from the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority that runs
LIRR. They may have different priorities or different time lags to deal with
a new service.
Just for the record, I'd like to echo the annoyance of the other posters who
griped about having the subway ride to JFK more than quadruple in price with
the advent of the AirTrain.
miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/
Alex Rodriguez
>One of those mass transit facilities used to have *free*, regular,
>quick shuttle-bus service to all areas at JFK. That shuttle bus
>service was discontinued when the AirTrain came online. The result?
>The AirTrain actually *increases* the cost and time required to
>get from JFK to many parts of Manhattan -- any part served by the
>"A" train of the subway system, and offers no improvement in
>convenience whatsoever -- it's still a two-seat ride.
>
>It just costs $7 now instead of $2. Yeah, that was worth spending
>two billion dollars. *Sure* it was.
The folks making those decisions don't care. They know they have the only
train ride to the airport, so they charge what they want. If they really
cared, they would have worked with the MTA to give us a single ride to the
airport. If they had done that, the $5 fare would be fair.
--------------
Alex
Exile on Market Street
> The folks making those decisions don't care. They know they have the only
> train ride to the airport, so they charge what they want. If they really
> cared, they would have worked with the MTA to give us a single ride to the
> airport. If they had done that, the $5 fare would be fair.
As I understood it, the reason Airtrain is a separate system is because
it was built using money from the Federal Aviation Trust Fund that can
be used on airport access projects.
According to the Feds' rules (as I saw them interpreted in the press),
said airport access projects can *only* be used to reach the airport.
Now I would think that a spur off an existing subway or regional rail
line that had stops only on the airport property ought to qualify. But
from what I recall reading, it wouldn't.
--
-----------Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia----------
Managing Editor, _Penn Current_ / smi...@pobox.upenn.edu
215.898.1423 / fax 215.898.1203 / http://pobox.upenn.edu/~smiths/
Got news? Got events? Got stories? Send 'em to cur...@pobox.upenn.edu
If you see this line, the opinions expressed are mine, not Penn's
"There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is
not being talked about."
---------------------------------------------------------Oscar Wilde--
nobody
If a foreigner is presented with a choice of only 2 options (Metrocard and
some other type of card), he won't have a clue of which is needed for a single
journey to manhattan.
$5.00 is very steep for a ride of a couple of minutes. $5 should get you
downtown on either LIRR or subway. But for JFK bound pax, they would probably
have to charge the $5.00.
My guess is that they fear loss of parking revenus.
At Gatwick, it is a no brainer to obtain a single card that covers both the
Gatwick express and the tube, even though you travel on 2 different systems.
Rapid T. Rabbit
> Howard Beach
>
> Howard Beach is where the Airtrain connects with the subway A train.
> Again there are banks of MetroCard machines. Here, the logical choice
> for almost all travelers (the exceptions are people who live in or are
> visiting the small Howard Beach community) is $7 JFK + Subway. To get
> to the subway, you have to go through two sets of ticket gates about
> 20 feet apart, one to leave the airport and one to enter the subway.
> The subway station is an open platform, but the station designers
> provided a window at the enclosed upper level from which you can see
> the train approaching.
As I posted awhile back, when I tried out the Airtain and negotiated the
Howard Beach transfer, I swiped my Pay-Per-Ride Metrocard once to reach
the A train and had $7 deducted at once, not being given the opportunity
to switch to my Unlimited Metrocard to pay my subway fare. A reply to my
post back then had indicated that there was another set of turnstiles
that I had missed which would have allowed me to use both cards separately.
> o The A trains that service the Howard Beach Station should have some
> clear airport marking. I suspect the a train fleet is still equipped
> with the old "Train to the Plane" signs. It might make sense to use
> them again.
I have noticed that since Airtrain service began, the route indicator
signs on those affected A trains have been altered. On both the R-38
subway cars with roll signs and the R-44 with LCD signs, the destination
now reads "Far Rockaway via JFK Airport".
Rapid T. Rabbit
The "T" stands for Transit.
Booge
Airline terminals are too far away from the terminal, making for an
uncomfortable walk if one has much baggage. Stations should have been built
alongside the upper levels of the terminals for easy access, like at Newark.
me
"Booge" <BA4...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:8XkXb.34427$fV5.7...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Did your brief comment warrant copying over 200 lines of the original post?
>
> "Booge" <BA4...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:8XkXb.34427$fV5.7...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> > Another problem that I have with Airtrain is that at the stations at the
> > Airline terminals are too far away from the terminal, making for an
> > uncomfortable walk if one has much baggage. Stations should have been built
> > alongside the upper levels of the terminals for easy access, like at Newark.
Did yours?
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
@x.
>I agree with the original poster as far as the menus to purchase a ticket.
>
>If a foreigner is presented with a choice of only 2 options (Metrocard and
>some other type of card), he won't have a clue of which is needed for a single
>journey to manhattan.
I suppose I'm the target traveler. I flew into JFK last Sunday from
San Diego on my first ever trip to New York City. I fly all over the
word but believe it or not Sunday was the first ever time I visited
NYC. Anyway as an absolute novice here was my experience.
Wasn't immediately obvious how you got from the terminal to the train.
I had to walk across traffic which was fine but I guess I expected a
covered, elevated walkway. It was not immediately clear to me there
was two trains. I just got on the first train that arrived and it was
the wrong one. Fortunately I read the map on the wall of the train
and realized this in time to get off at the next station. The correct
train came along a couple of minutes behind the one I was on so it was
no big deal. At the station where I was to catch the subway I found
the machines were easy to operate but it wasn't clear what kind of
pass I needed to pay my fare. "$5 metrorail card??" Why don't they
just have a "$5 Air train ticket" it would seem a little more
obvious. But here is the one that was really screwy. On the vending
machine inside the turnstiles you can not buy a "all day funpass" You
first have to buy a $5 metrorail card, then walk through the
turnstiles and only then can you buy an all day funpass which is what
I imagine most out of town travelers would want.
Anyway. It wasn't the easiest transportation ever but as a novice I
really had no major troubles. The part where I have to use two
vending machines on separate sides of the turnstiles to buy the two
separate passes I needed to get to Manhattan was absolutely ludicrous.
Maybe they are trying to discourage use of the $7 all day subway
funpass by out of towners.
$5 each way really seemed a little steep to me as well. I kind of
felt ripped off. Hearing that it cost $2 billion to build, I suppose
for that price I would have been fine on a shuttle bus.
Tim Kynerd
> Did your brief comment warrant copying over 200 lines of the original post?
Did yours?
-rest snipped-
--
Tim Kynerd Sundbyberg (småstan i storstan), Sweden tky...@spamcop.net
Sunrise in Stockholm today: 7:34
Sunset in Stockholm today: 16:28
My rail transit photos at http://www.kynerd.nu
Tim Kynerd
> Alex Rodriguez wrote:
>
>
>> The folks making those decisions don't care. They know they have the only
>> train ride to the airport, so they charge what they want. If they really
>> cared, they would have worked with the MTA to give us a single ride to the
>> airport. If they had done that, the $5 fare would be fair.
>
> As I understood it, the reason Airtrain is a separate system is because
> it was built using money from the Federal Aviation Trust Fund that can
> be used on airport access projects.
>
> According to the Feds' rules (as I saw them interpreted in the press),
> said airport access projects can *only* be used to reach the airport.
-snip-
That in itself doesn't dictate charging $5 to use AirTrain to reach the
Howard Beach subway station while allowing free rides to the parking lots.
If the PA for some weird reason felt constrained to charge for the ride to
Howard Beach, then it should have charged for the parking lot ride as well.
Tim Kynerd
>
> "Arnold Reinhold" <rein...@world.std.com> wrote in message
> news:86035fb1.04021...@posting.google.com...
>
>> Problems on the AirTrain
>>
>> The AirTrain itself is not as user friendly as it might be. Stops are
>> announced in English inside the cars, but only the airport terminal
>> number is given. There is a smallish card on each car listing the
>> eight terminals and the airlines they serve.
>
> Announcements in languages other than English would be a good idea but I'm
> not sure what languages you would pick.
The train that moves people between terminals at Hartsfield Atlanta
airport has multilingual displays (though not announcements), and has for
some years now. They show, if memory serves, English, Spanish, French,
German, Japanese and Korean. (Chinese should have been there too, and it
may be. My memory ain't what it used to be....)
-rest snipped-
Robert Coté
Tim Kynerd <r0yo...@sneakemail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 23:55:10 -0500, Exile on Market Street wrote:
>
> > Alex Rodriguez wrote:
> >
> >
> >> The folks making those decisions don't care. They know they have the only
> >> train ride to the airport, so they charge what they want. If they really
> >> cared, they would have worked with the MTA to give us a single ride to the
> >> airport. If they had done that, the $5 fare would be fair.
> >
> > As I understood it, the reason Airtrain is a separate system is because
> > it was built using money from the Federal Aviation Trust Fund that can
> > be used on airport access projects.
> >
> > According to the Feds' rules (as I saw them interpreted in the press),
> > said airport access projects can *only* be used to reach the airport.
>
> -snip-
>
> That in itself doesn't dictate charging $5 to use AirTrain to reach the
> Howard Beach subway station while allowing free rides to the parking lots.
> If the PA for some weird reason felt constrained to charge for the ride to
> Howard Beach, then it should have charged for the parking lot ride as well.
Trust me. They get back the "free" ride to the parking lot in parking
fees many times over. Aitrain represents a major potential hit to one
of their most profitable activities no doubt the $5 is to keep the lots
full.
mrtravelkay
> Trust me. They get back the "free" ride to the parking lot in parking
> fees many times over. Aitrain represents a major potential hit to one
> of their most profitable activities no doubt the $5 is to keep the lots
> full.
Plus, the cost to build and maintain it is probably astronomical
John Mara
"Booge" <BA4...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:8XkXb.34427$fV5.7...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Airline terminals are too far away from the terminal, making for an
> uncomfortable walk if one has much baggage. Stations should have been
built
> alongside the upper levels of the terminals for easy access, like at
Newark.
The Airtrain station is right inside the terminal at terminal 4.
John Mara
Peter T. Daniels
> Anyway. It wasn't the easiest transportation ever but as a novice I
> really had no major troubles. The part where I have to use two
> vending machines on separate sides of the turnstiles to buy the two
> separate passes I needed to get to Manhattan was absolutely ludicrous.
> Maybe they are trying to discourage use of the $7 all day subway
> funpass by out of towners.
The (originally $4, when a single fare was $1.50) FunPass was invented
_for_ tourists and initially they made it very difficult for a local to
get one. But at $7 it's rarely the best choice, since you need to make
four two-leg trips to make it cheaper than simply using your per-ride
card ($1.67). For a commuter, the weekly ($21) or monthly ($70)
unlimited cards are the best deal.
Peter T. Daniels
Did the parking fee go up when Airtrain opened?
Steven M. O'Neill
> @X. wrote:
>
>> Anyway. It wasn't the easiest transportation ever but as a novice I
>> really had no major troubles. The part where I have to use two
>> vending machines on separate sides of the turnstiles to buy the two
>> separate passes I needed to get to Manhattan was absolutely ludicrous.
>> Maybe they are trying to discourage use of the $7 all day subway
>> funpass by out of towners.
>
>The (originally $4, when a single fare was $1.50) FunPass was invented
>_for_ tourists and initially they made it very difficult for a local to
>get one. But at $7 it's rarely the best choice, since you need to make
>four two-leg trips to make it cheaper than simply using your per-ride
>card ($1.67).
Or more than that still if you can manange to take one or two of
the legs on a bus using a free subway-bus or bus-subway transfer.
--
Steven O'Neill ste...@panix.com
Tim Kynerd
Sorry, Robert, but there's no logical reason why people who pay to park
shouldn't also pay to ride AirTrain to and from the parking lots. Parking
is one service; AirTrain is another.
Unless, of course, the PA raised parking fees when AirTrain opened -- and
presumably by $5 for the first hour/day. Otherwise, airport parkers are
being subsidized by other riders.
--
Tim Kynerd Sundbyberg (småstan i storstan), Sweden tky...@spamcop.net
Sunrise in Stockholm today: 7:32
Sunset in Stockholm today: 16:31
Booge
Booge
at terminal 8 and 9 is at least one football field away as is at least two
others that I know.
"John Mara" <john...@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:uWxXb.57334$n62....@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
Brian Robinson OR Carol Goter Robinson OR Bill Robinson
me
"Booge" <BA4...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:8FHXb.3431$aH3.1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
me
"Brian Robinson OR Carol Goter Robinson OR Bill Robinson" <wr...@erols.com>
wrote in message news:402F4AB8...@erols.com...
> Did yours? :-p
Peter T. Daniels
Eh? The only way you can get more than two legs is by the Staten Island
workaround that gives you SIRT (+ free ferry) + subway + bus. I've never
had the courage to try one of those "walking transfers" as at 59th-63rd,
or at the north end of the G -- I don't want to lose a fare off my card
if they don't simply mean "you can use your transfer to go between these
lines here" (since I've had to take the bus to the subway in the first
place).
Peter T. Daniels
>
> On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 08:39:08 +0100, Tim Kynerd
> <r0yo...@sneakemail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Sorry, Robert, but there's no logical reason why people who pay to park
> >shouldn't also pay to ride AirTrain to and from the parking lots. Parking
> >is one service; AirTrain is another.
>
Yo idiot,
By now three people have pointed out that if parking fees didn't go up
the day Airtrain opened, then parkers are not paying for Airtrain.
But no one has answered whether they did or not.
Arnold Reinhold
http://www.panynj.gov/aviation/traffic/monthlysummary2003.html
About half the passengers through JFK are international, vs about 1/4
at Newark. Perhaps the recession has had less efffect on international
travel. Anyway, 2001 was not a typical year for air travel (to put it
mildly).
The point is that both airports are about the same size, buth have
connections from Penn Station that are comparible in price, frequency
and convienience, but only one (Newark) is publicized there.
T'aint right.
Arnold Reinhold
"Sancho Panza" <otter...@xhotmail.com> wrote in message news:<c0jv1...@enews3.newsguy.com>...
> "Arnold Reinhold" <rein...@world.std.com> wrote in message
> news:86035fb1.04021...@posting.google.com...
> > JFK handles slightly more traffic than Newark (31.5 Million passengers per
> year vs 29.5).
>
> That may be reversed:
>
> JFK
>
> 1999
> 2000
> 2001
>
> % Change2001/2000 Revenue Passengers (millions)31.732.929.4-10.6%
>
> Aircraft Movement343,299 345,089 292,367 -15.3%
>
> Cargo (tons)1,752,821 1,864,383 1,466,389 -21.3%
>
> EWR
>
> 1999
> 2000
> 2001
>
> % Change2001/2000Revenue Passengers (millions)33.634.230.5-10.8%
>
> Aircraft Movement457,972 450,229 436,420 -3.1%
>
> Cargo (tons)1,084,660 1,070,379 786,660 -26.5%
>
> http://www.panynj.gov/aviation/traffic/coverfram.HTM
David J. Greenberger
> By now three people have pointed out that if parking fees didn't go up
> the day Airtrain opened, then parkers are not paying for Airtrain.
>
> But no one has answered whether they did or not.
Then did not.
Before AirTrain opened, long term parking rates were $5 per 12 hours,
or only $3 for under 12 hours.
Currently, long term parking rates are $5 per 12 hours, or only $3 for
under 12 hours. A free round trip on AirTrain, valued at $10, is
included for each person in the car.
--
David J. Greenberger
New York, NY
Steven M. O'Neill
It's also possible that the parkers were previously paying for
some or all of the free shuttle bus that served the subway and
the parking lots. </pure speculation>
On a related note, I did, a few weeks ago, take the B15 (?) bus
to the airport, take a free round trip on the Air Train and then
took the Q10 (?) to Kew Gardens to get on the subway. The bus
stops are not marked at all from an arriving passengers
perspective, but the first employee that I asked knew right
where it was.
Robert Coté
ste...@panix.com (Steven M. O'Neill) wrote:
> David J. Greenberger <dav...@email.com> wrote:
> >"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> >
> >> By now three people have pointed out that if parking fees didn't go up
> >> the day Airtrain opened, then parkers are not paying for Airtrain.
> >>
> >> But no one has answered whether they did or not.
> >
> >Then did not.
> >
> >Before AirTrain opened, long term parking rates were $5 per 12 hours,
> >or only $3 for under 12 hours.
> >
> >Currently, long term parking rates are $5 per 12 hours, or only $3 for
> >under 12 hours. A free round trip on AirTrain, valued at $10, is
> >included for each person in the car.
>
> It's also possible that the parkers were previously paying for
> some or all of the free shuttle bus that served the subway and
> the parking lots. </pure speculation>
Parking is one of two the golden geese at US airports. It pays for
everything. The other golden goose is the PFC which also gets perverted
into a general fund and transit revenue stream. One egregious example
is directly on topic. The Portland light rail extension, AirMAX, is
significantly financed by the $3 PFC that every commercial air passenger
pays coming and going.
So now we have examples on both coasts of what happens when rail goes to
the airport. Everyone's costs and expenses go up and rail users pay
nowhere near their fair share of those expenses.
Robert Coté
Tim Kynerd <r0yo...@sneakemail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 22:31:40 +0000, mrtravelkay wrote:
>
> > Robert Coté wrote:
> >
> >> Trust me. They get back the "free" ride to the parking lot in parking
> >> fees many times over. Aitrain represents a major potential hit to one
> >> of their most profitable activities no doubt the $5 is to keep the lots
> >> full.
> >
> > Plus, the cost to build and maintain it is probably astronomical
>
> Sorry, Robert, but there's no logical reason why people who pay to park
> shouldn't also pay to ride AirTrain to and from the parking lots. Parking
> is one service; AirTrain is another.
It's called bundling and is extremely common.
The whole concept of "free parking" has been confusing since the
Monopoly game put in the square. There is no free parking, it costs to
purchase land, build and maintain and somebody ends up paying for it.
It's bundled in the price of goods purchased at the big box or mall.
It's bundled in the movie ticket price, etc. However, this is a two
sided coin. Those big box prices are lower precisely because of the
large parking lot and business model built around it. You get those low
everyday prices even if you arrive by walking. In that case the parking
lot subsidizes pedestrians. It is certainly posssible to unbundle but
airport parking fees are so much higher than costs that unbundling
airtrain fares would result in massive increase in train pricing and
equally massive reductions in the costs of parking.
>
> Unless, of course, the PA raised parking fees when AirTrain opened -- and
> presumably by $5 for the first hour/day. Otherwise, airport parkers are
> being subsidized by other riders.
You need to look at the economics of airport parking before making such
a brash statement. Airport parking fees and Passenger Facilities
Charges are why municipalities love airports.
Baxter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free software - Baxter Codeworks www.baxcode.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Robert Coté" <ts...@adelph.net> wrote in message
news:tscn-F73D9E.0...@news-central.ash.giganews.com...
> is directly on topic. The Portland light rail extension, AirMAX, is
> significantly financed by the $3 PFC that every commercial air passenger
> pays coming and going.
>
Well, not quite, bobby - that $3 only covers the part of AirMAX that is on
Airport property. Those trains run all the way to Beaverton (on the other
side of downtown). Also, that $3 is only on departures - not both ways.
And do note, the $3 fee only applies to construction (airport share = ~$28
million) - not operating costs.
'Course, you're welcome to challenge this - but to do so would undermine
most of your other arguments about how much LRT costs.
Clark F. Morris, Jr.
Airport parking fees are an interesting case. The tax or in lieu fees
on the property covered by the lots owned by an airport authority is
probably lower than the tax on the land covered by the private parking
lots which have to provide van or car shuttles. The airport if it isn't
taxed on the land is definitely making money and even if it is taxed
equally, it probably is still doing better than the private operators.
The Airtrain at JFK and the equivalent system at Newark Airport is free
inside the complex and at least at Newark also serves as an
interterminal connector. The question arises as to the fee charged when
the ride is not to a parking lot but rather to a transit connection. On
the Airtrain, 5 dollars could well be reasonable for the line to Jamaica
since it is well outside the boundary of the airport and it could be
justified at a higher price per round trip than the implied amount for
the parking lot cost (3 dollars or less) because of the greater cost.
The same can not be said for the connection to the A train. Apparently
the connection point is very close to a normal remote parking lot stop.
Thus a round trip price of over 3 dollars is unjustified since that is
greater than the feel to park at that location and ride the Air train.
The Jamaica connection is clearly off property (at least a mile and
probably a lot more) while the A train connection is on property or very
close to on property as I understand it. Clarifications from others are
welcome.
The following somewhat related comment belongs in the "how times change"
category and is related. In the 1950's, Newark, New Jersey got as much
in taxes on Penn Station, Newark as it did in fees in lieu of taxes on
the entire Newark airport property, parking lots, runways, etc. from the
Port of New York Authority. Today with New Jersey Transit owning Penn
Station, I doubt Newark is getting much if anything in the way of taxes
or in lieu payments.
Imya Rek
trolled:
>Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> 127.0.0.1 wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 08:39:08 +0100, Tim Kynerd
>>><r0yo...@sneakemail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Sorry, Robert, but there's no logical reason why people who pay to park
>>>>shouldn't also pay to ride AirTrain to and from the parking lots. Parking
>>>>is one service; AirTrain is another.
>>>
>>>they pay for it via the parking fees
>>
>>
>> Yo idiot,
>>
>> By now three people have pointed out that if parking fees didn't go up
>> the day Airtrain opened, then parkers are not paying for Airtrain.
>>
>> But no one has answered whether they did or not.
>
>What form of transit did they use to get to the parking lot before
>Airtrain? Was there a charge for it?
Fuck off asshole! Stop asking so many retarded questions, idiot!
About Rogue Cisco Employee Michael "mrtravelkay" Voight,
a.k.a. the "mrtravel" Netkook Troll/Usenet Flooder
"mrtavelkay" is the latest usenet handle of a brainless troll whose real name is
Michael Voight, email <mvo...@cisco.com>.
He is better known by his previous stupid handle, "mrtravel".
The idiot works for Cisco in San Jose and apparently they don't
keep him busy enough so he has to troll usenet when he isn't
looking for foreign brides to marry in exchange for money
in alt.visa.us.marriage-based and alt.personals.big-folks, or trying
to pick up minors in alt.personals.teens or any of the number of creepy
newsgroups he frequents. Some of his other trolling aliases are Network
Guy, starryst...@sbcglobal.net, sleepydoc <slee...@verizon.net>, jlhunt
<jlh...@huntbros.com>, and Lost 5 of 8 <se...@loveme.fun>, mrt <m...@mrt.com>,
news.sf.sbcglobal.net <no...@none.none>, not-nomen
<no...@none.none>,<uclais...@ucla.edd>, David Tanner
<dtann...@dtanner.org>, Jeff Davies <te...@test.test>.
All intelligent members of the usenet community have killfiled him, so he takes
great pains to get past their killfiles by rubbing his only two cerebral neurons
together and coming up with gems like: mrtrav <mrt...@mtr.mrt.trm>, mrtrav3
<mr...@aa.aa>, mrraveltay <mrrav...@me.igpay.atinlay>. The lastest product of
his brain diarrhea is mrtravelkay <mrtra...@a.aa> and he seems to like to
hang out in alt.personals.fat. Hmmm....
His phone number is 831-252-2606.
He's got a daughter in Orange County that one of his ex-wives had the
intelligence to take away from him. Lord only knows what could have
happened to her if she had continued to live with the kook. The other kids
he has belong to his previous Russian sleazy brides, and since they come
and go so do the kids. It wouldn't hurt to let Cisco know what kind of
deviant sexual pervert maniac they have working for them, so....
For starters, forward his idiotic posts to ab...@cisco.com .
He works in technical support, so forward them to t...@cisco.com .
He often posts through sbcglobal and prodigy, so forward them to
ab...@prodigy.net and ab...@sbcglobal.net as well.
You can also call them at 1 800 553 2447 and ask to speak with a supervisor
and explain that you are EXTREMELY unhappy that this idiot spends his whole
day at work playing on the internet on company time. THEY WILL NOT LIKE
THAT.
Then write to corporate headquarters explaining what this idiot is doing
and telling them HOW BAD IT IS FOR THEIR COMPANY IMAGE. They will LOVE
that you brought this to their attention:
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134
USA
Then also call them. You should always follow up email or letters with
phone calls. Always ask for supervisors or managers. Try to get as far up
as possible.
(408)526-4000
(800)553-NETS or
(800)553-6387
Contact Investor Relations and tell them you are interested in investing in
their company but won't do so until they get rid of this asshole who is
wasting company resources:
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Investor Relations Department
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134-1706
Phone: (408) 526-8890
Fax: (408) 526-4545
Email: investor-...@cisco.com
Might as well contact customer service too, they LOVE to hear about this
type of stuff:
USA 1 800 553 6387
ic-sup...@cisco.com
cs-sup...@cisco.com
Then finally, send letters with copies of his nasty posts addressed
personally to each one of the OFFICERS of the company using the
headquarters address. Believe me, they READ your complaints and are VERY
INTERESTED in them, especially if it's about one of their employees. They
will take a PERSONAL interest in rooting this ASSHOLE out of their company:
John Morgridge, Chairman
John Chambers, President, CEO
Donald Valentine, Vice Chairman
Larry Carter, CFO, Sr. VP-Fin. and Admin., Sec., Director
Richard Justice, Sr. VP, Worldwide Field Operations
Have fun!
Sancho Panza
"Arnold Reinhold" <rein...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:86035fb1.04021...@posting.google.com...
connections from Penn Station that are comparible in price, frequency and
convienience, but only one (Newark) is publicized there.
Just goes to show how pathetic the Port Authority is. Imagine, the Port
Authority makes another agency like NJ Transit look good. Wow!
Sancho Panza
"127.0.0.1" <j...@cs.com> wrote in message
news:6utt201460l9204tv...@4ax.com...
> the ride to the parking lot is paid for with parking fees
And it was for many years. All that while the employees got a completely
free ride, thanks to the long-term parkers. But did anybody say anything for
25 years? Not in these parts.
Steve Lackey
> ripped off they are desensitized to it
Free parking for generally low wage jobs? Count that in as part of the
limited compensation package. I'm assuming there are more baggage
handlers, food service workers, and mop pushers in that group than airline
pilots. It's part of pushing down the price of airport services for
travelers.
nobody
> freeloaders never say anything, and motorists are so used to being
> ripped off they are desensitized to it
The problem with mass transit is that except in a few rare cases, it is a long
term society decision as opposed to a short term financial/profit decision.
As cities grow, they need greater transport infrastructure. That can be done
either by building more highways which cut off parts of a city from each
other, take up large amounts of valuable land and generate noise-pollution or
by building rapid transit systems.
Many governments outside of north america have taken serious steps to curb the
use of a personal car. Such governments have no problems fostering use of
rapid transit to airport because they also have some contrtol over airport and
can dictate that the airport not focus on providing parking spaces. And guess
what ? The citizens and visitors have gotten used to that and don't complain.
You need a strong central administration to corrdonate airport finances with
rapid transit finances as well a highway finances. When you have a
decentralised government, then the savings from not building that extra
federal highway can't easily be transfered to the city budgets to finance
buying extra rolling stock for their mass transit system.
JFK is a good example of this. They doN't want to cannabalise the parking
revenus, so they charge those who come in by mass transit a parking fee. And
because the airport transit system isn't from the same level of government as
the other 2 rapid transit systems, they are not integrated.
If you go to places such as Amsterdam, Zürich, Hong Kong etc, then you find
the transit very well integrated with the airport. Sydney may have the trains
on the same track, but the fees charges when you use the Sydney airporty train
stations are excessively high because those statiosn aren't quite integrated
with the rest of the network and you need to pay a separate fee for the
different owners of the station/tunnels.
Steve Lackey
>
> "Arnold Reinhold" <rein...@world.std.com> wrote in message
> news:86035fb1.04021...@posting.google.com...
>
> >
> > The AirTrain itself is not as user friendly as it might be. Stops are
> > announced in English inside the cars, but only the airport terminal
> > number is given. There is a smallish card on each car listing the
> > eight terminals and the airlines they serve.
>
> not sure what languages you would pick.
>
English, French and Spanish might give some good coverage. Far East
travelers would generally expect to have to know some English.
Better yet, isn't there just a video display inside the cars announcing
that?
If not, there should be. Displaying numerals and names should give
travelers enough time to figure out what matches the printed travel
itinerary
in their hands.
Sancho Panza
"nobody" <nob...@nobody.com> wrote in message
news:4031140C...@nobody.com...
> That can be done either by building more highways which cut off parts of a
city from each other, take up large amounts of valuable land and generate
noise-pollution or by building rapid transit systems.
Is that saying in other words the rapid mass transit, most likely rail, does
not create or add to any of those problems? That is patently not accurate.
>Such governments have no problems fostering use of rapid transit to airport
because they also have some contrtol over airport and can dictate that the
airport not focus on providing parking spaces.
The States of New York and New Jersey DO have direct control over the Port
Authority. They choose not to use it for a wide variety of reasons,
including patronage and financial gain.
> They charge those who come in by mass transit a parking fee.
If they did include the parking fee, the charge would be $10, not $5. As it
stands, the reverse has been the fact for more than 20 years.
> the airport transit system isn't from the same level of government as the
other 2 rapid transit systems, they are not integrated.
The M.T.A., is of course wholly controlled by Albany. In the case of the
Port Authority, the governor of New York appoints half the board. In the end
the level is fundamentally the same.
Joe Versaggi
>
>>They charge those who come in by mass transit a parking fee.
>
>
> If they did include the parking fee, the charge would be $10, not $5. As it
> stands, the reverse has been the fact for more than 20 years.
>
They do charge $10 - for the roundtrip. Presumably, one who takes
Airtrain to JFK takes it returning as well. For a ride of 2 or 3 miles
each way to Jamaica, that is excessive, particularly for a manless
operation. It's really a rip-off for Howard Beach. Still better off
taking the Q10 from Kew Gardens however slow.
David J. Greenberger
> On the Airtrain, 5 dollars could well be reasonable for the line to
> Jamaica since it is well outside the boundary of the airport and it
> could be justified at a higher price per round trip than the implied
> amount for the parking lot cost (3 dollars or less) because of the
> greater cost. The same can not be said for the connection to the A
> train. Apparently the connection point is very close to a normal
> remote parking lot stop.
Very close? It's the same stop!
There are two AirTrain stations serving the long term parking lot:
Lefferts Boulevard and Howard Beach.
That's right, Howard Beach. The same station that connects with the
subway.
There are two station exits, one to the parking lot and one to the
subway and neighborhood. Only the latter has faregates. Even the
direct /walking/ route from Howard Beach (the neighborhood or the
subway station) to the airport now has a $5 fee in each direction.
> Thus a round trip price of over 3 dollars is unjustified since that
> is greater than the feel to park at that location and ride the Air
> train. The Jamaica connection is clearly off property (at least a
> mile and probably a lot more) while the A train connection is on
> property or very close to on property as I understand it.
> Clarifications from others are welcome.
It's about three miles from the terminals to Jamaica.
David J. Greenberger
> It's also possible that the parkers were previously paying for
> some or all of the free shuttle bus that served the subway and
> the parking lots. </pure speculation>
The past is the past. Currently, depending on the durations of their
trips and how many people are traveling together, some parkers manage
to pay less to park the car and then ride AirTrain than they would to
only ride AirTrain.
According to an old version of the AirTrain website (the current one
doesn't address these issues at all), "Once the system is operating,
it will pay for itself; operating revenues are expected to exceed
operating costs." In other words, the (projected) 11,000 farepaying
riders -- in particular, the fraction of that 11,000 (I don't have the
breakdown) who don't qualify for discounted 30-day passes -- are
covering the operating costs of the remaining 23,000 riders.
> On a related note, I did, a few weeks ago, take the B15 (?) bus to
> the airport, take a free round trip on the Air Train and then took
> the Q10 (?) to Kew Gardens to get on the subway. The bus stops are
> not marked at all from an arriving passengers perspective, but the
> first employee that I asked knew right where it was.
The Q3 and B15 will lose their terminal circuit, stopping only at
Federal Circle and Terminal 4. I don't know if the Q10 will follow
suit, but I expect it most likely will. Transfer to AirTrain for
service to the other terminals. Can't make it too convenient to get
to the airport at standard transit prices!
danny burstein
>The Q3 and B15 will lose their terminal circuit, stopping only at
>Federal Circle and Terminal 4. I don't know if the Q10 will follow
>suit, but I expect it most likely will. Transfer to AirTrain for
>service to the other terminals. Can't make it too convenient to get
>to the airport at standard transit prices!
The Q-10 serves a pretty hefty number of airplane worker/commuters who
live along its route. Dunno much about the other buses, but adding extra
time and expense to those folk's ride each day would probably get a lot of
people pissed.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Steve Lackey
"Joe Versaggi" <JOEM...@att.net> wrote in message
news:_abYb.8733$aH3.2...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Unless you value your time. If I've just spent $800 to fly 14 hours to
Asia for instance, an extra $5 to skip a local city bus is no big deal.
Really, this is such a small part of your overall trip cost, I'd rather just
pack sandwiches and skip the airport food court than skimp a net
$3 on ground transportation to get there.
If you work there, it's a whole different story, since you'd multiply the
above by 20. Isn't that really what the whole argument about $5 is
about? For that, I'd expect employee shuttles from rail stations.
Is there any?
Miguel Cruz
> The whole concept of "free parking" has been confusing since the
> Monopoly game put in the square. There is no free parking, it costs to
> purchase land, build and maintain and somebody ends up paying for it.
> It's bundled in the price of goods purchased at the big box or mall.
> It's bundled in the movie ticket price, etc. However, this is a two
> sided coin. Those big box prices are lower precisely because of the
> large parking lot and business model built around it. You get those low
> everyday prices even if you arrive by walking. In that case the parking
> lot subsidizes pedestrians.
No it doesn't; that's not what "subsidize" means. Pedestrians don't add any
costs to be subsidized; in fact they are cheaper than drivers because they
don't push the parking lot usage closer to the expansion-or-frustration
tipping point. Their purchases contribute to the bottom line just as much as
drivers' purchases.
miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/
Miguel Cruz
> subway and neighborhood. Only the latter has faregates. Even the
> direct /walking/ route from Howard Beach (the neighborhood or the
> subway station) to the airport now has a $5 fee in each direction.
Is it possible to walk out the parking lot exit and around to the subway
station?
Binyamin Dissen
:>David J. Greenberger <dav...@email.com> wrote:
:>> There are two station exits, one to the parking lot and one to the
:>> subway and neighborhood. Only the latter has faregates. Even the
:>> direct /walking/ route from Howard Beach (the neighborhood or the
:>> subway station) to the airport now has a $5 fee in each direction.
:>Is it possible to walk out the parking lot exit and around to the subway
:>station?
I was wondering that as well.
--
Binyamin Dissen <bdi...@dissensoftware.com>
http://www.dissensoftware.com
David J. Greenberger
> David J. Greenberger <dav...@email.com> wrote:
>> There are two station exits, one to the parking lot and one to the
>> subway and neighborhood. Only the latter has faregates. Even the
>> direct /walking/ route from Howard Beach (the neighborhood or the
>> subway station) to the airport now has a $5 fee in each direction.
>
> Is it possible to walk out the parking lot exit and around to the subway
> station?
Yes. The nearest parking lot exit is the Lefferts Boulevard exit, at
the south edge of a massive five-roadway conglomeration of highways.
The closest subway station is the N. Conduit station, about a mile
away. There are two basic routes there: cross under(?) the
megahighway and walk west along N. Conduit (the westbound service
road, so to speak, although it carries mostly Belt Parkway overflow
traffic) to the subway, or walk west through a construction site on
airport property just outside the parking lot fence and cross over the
Belt (etc.) on a two-lane road with no sidewalk. I don't know if the
former route has a sidewalk; I've only done the latter (in the
opposite direction).
If you're planning on taking that walk after flying in, I recommend
you do a trial run without luggage first.
The only way across the subway tracks between the Belt etc. and the
Rockaway peninsula is via the AirTrain turnstiles.
Miguel Cruz
> development in the US in that time period has taken place outside of
> concentrated urban areas, places that are too spread out to enable
> walking to anything
I don't know where you've been for the last few postings, but that has
nothing to do with what we're talking about.
me
It is kinda a funny use of the word subsidize. But the posters point
is that the walk up guy benefits from the parking lot, whether
he parks or not. The store is able to deliver the products they
have at the price they do because of all of them SUV driving customers.
If they had to rely upon walk up business only, the selection would
be narrower, and the prices higher. As such, the pedestrian customer
has an interest in bearing the same burden for the parking lot cost
of business as the folks who actually park there.
There's an old story about a guy who makes leather purses. He
gets leather from cows that are being slaughtered for food. If he
doesn't make purses out of them, the leather is discarded. So he
gets a pretty good price for the leather. The accusation is that
the steak eaters are subsidizing the purse buyers. Then his purses
get so popular that the purse buyers become an excuse to
slaughter the cow, whether the meat is needed or not. So the price
of cow meat drops. Now the purse customers claim to be subsidizing
the meat eaters. But it's easy to understand how some folks see it
that way. But really no one is subsidizing anyone since they'd
all be buying meat or purses regardless. They do have a symbiotic
relationship however.
Steve Lackey
> is that the walk up guy benefits from the parking lot, whether
> he parks or not. The store is able to deliver the products they
> have at the price they do because of all of them SUV driving customers.
> If they had to rely upon walk up business only, the selection would
> be narrower, and the prices higher. As such, the pedestrian customer
> has an interest in bearing the same burden for the parking lot cost
> of business as the folks who actually park there.
You mean the big box stores that have low prices because of the
economy of scale involved in selling to people who fill the back end
of their SUVs and minivans with a pallet worth of stuff are subsidizing
the walk up customer who just buys what he can put in his little
urban shopping cart? I mean, in one transaction, the SUV guy probably
spends in the $100-200 range for month supplies of stuff, while the
walkup guy likely spends in the $50 range for a week or two worth
of stuff at a higher unit cost than the SUV guy. Plus, he takes up the
same amount of "store resources" to make his purchase, in terms of
space and employee time to process his transaction, assuming it takes
the same amount of time to scan a barcode whether its a single roll
of paper towels or the 12-pack, so he probably makes 3-4 visits in a
month instead of one.
OTOH, the store makes more profit off the walkup guy in a shopping cart.
I guess someone would argue that the walkup guy is subsidizing the SUV
guy, but I'd suspect the whole thing is close to a wash.
> There's an old story about a guy who makes leather purses. He
> gets leather from cows that are being slaughtered for food. If he
> doesn't make purses out of them, the leather is discarded. So he
> gets a pretty good price for the leather. The accusation is that
> the steak eaters are subsidizing the purse buyers. Then his purses
> get so popular that the purse buyers become an excuse to
> slaughter the cow, whether the meat is needed or not. So the price
> of cow meat drops. Now the purse customers claim to be subsidizing
> the meat eaters. But it's easy to understand how some folks see it
> that way. But really no one is subsidizing anyone since they'd
> all be buying meat or purses regardless. They do have a symbiotic
> relationship however.
This is a pretty smart example, though the point where leather demand
exceeds corresponding beef demand, the input price changes
dramatically. Haven't sat in an econ class in better than 10 years, but
my guess is that the purse buyers would technically be correct only if
their purse price rises.
Robert Coté
"Baxter" <lbax01.s...@baxcode.com> wrote:
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Free software - Baxter Codeworks www.baxcode.com
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> "Robert Coté" <ts...@adelph.net> wrote in message
> news:tscn-F73D9E.0...@news-central.ash.giganews.com...
>
> > is directly on topic. The Portland light rail extension, AirMAX, is
> > significantly financed by the $3 PFC that every commercial air passenger
> > pays coming and going.
> >
>
> Well, not quite, bobby - that $3 only covers the part of AirMAX that is on
> Airport property.
And Tri-Met, Metro, City of, and the Port authority are famous for their
rigorous financial firewalls.
> Those trains run all the way to Beaverton (on the other
> side of downtown). Also, that $3 is only on departures - not both ways.
You are correct. I should have said "coming through and going" to make
that clearer.
> And do note, the $3 fee only applies to construction (airport share = ~$28
> million) - not operating costs.
Yeah riiiight. $28 million. Hmmm, generating $1.3 million per month it
should only be around for 22 months.
>
> 'Course, you're welcome to challenge this - but to do so would undermine
> most of your other arguments about how much LRT costs.
>
Not at all.
Baxter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free software - Baxter Codeworks www.baxcode.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Robert Coté" <ts...@adelph.net> wrote in message
news:tscn-896EE7.0...@news-central.ash.giganews.com...
> In article <102vqcj...@corp.supernews.com>,
> "Baxter" <lbax01.s...@baxcode.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > "Robert Coté" <ts...@adelph.net> wrote in message
> > news:tscn-F73D9E.0...@news-central.ash.giganews.com...
> >
> > > is directly on topic. The Portland light rail extension, AirMAX, is
> > > significantly financed by the $3 PFC that every commercial air
passenger
> > > pays coming and going.
> > >
> >
> > Well, not quite, bobby - that $3 only covers the part of AirMAX that is
on
> > Airport property.
>
> And Tri-Met, Metro, City of, and the Port authority are famous for their
> rigorous financial firewalls.
You got any actual proof of wrongdoing? If you do, then hie yourself to the
Attorney General's office. Otherwise you're just blowing smoke.
>
> > Those trains run all the way to Beaverton (on the other
> > side of downtown). Also, that $3 is only on departures - not both ways.
>
> You are correct. I should have said "coming through and going" to make
> that clearer.
Actually, you're trying to obfusticate.
> > And do note, the $3 fee only applies to construction (airport share =
~$28
> > million) - not operating costs.
>
> Yeah riiiight. $28 million. Hmmm, generating $1.3 million per month it
> should only be around for 22 months.
>
> >
> > 'Course, you're welcome to challenge this - but to do so would undermine
> > most of your other arguments about how much LRT costs.
> >
>
> Not at all.
Oh, yes - what figure are you up to now for MAX costs $5 billion? Or more?
nobody
You need to consider that a parking lot isn't free. The store must purchase
the land and pay taxes on the land which, for box stores, doesn't generate any
revenus. There are also costs associated with lighting and surveillance, as
well as snow removal.
So part of the cost of the roll of toilet paper goes towards paying for the
parking lot, so walk-in customers end up subsidizing the SUV drivers.
In an airport, the equation is different because parking generates revenus. Do
those parking lots generate virtual profits because the full costs of the
land/maintenance/taxes is not factored in ?
What if governments were to mandate that airports must pay an environment tax
for each hectare of land that does not have vegetation ? (grass or forest) ?
Perhaps airports would then see the savings in giving vast expanses of paved
land back to nature and fostering mass transit access to the airport.
Also, airports generally have vast expanses of land around them due to noise
issues. Is the land more profitable as a paved parking lot, or would they make
greater profit leasing the land for industrial complex/wharehouses ?
edo
>re: big box stores profit of walkup guy versus SUV guy.
>
>You need to consider that a parking lot isn't free. The store must purchase
>the land and pay taxes on the land which, for box stores, doesn't generate any
>revenus. There are also costs associated with lighting and surveillance, as
>well as snow removal.
>
>So part of the cost of the roll of toilet paper goes towards paying for the
>parking lot, so walk-in customers end up subsidizing the SUV drivers.
JF and SUVs, like a rabbid dog with a bone...
==============================
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
About
J F M E Z E I
==============================
Author: Michael Voight "mrtravelkay" <mvo...@cisco.com>
1. Who is JF Mezei?
Jean-Francois Mezei is the worst netkook and megatroll to have ever hit
rec.travel.air and various other usenet newsgroups. He is also one of the
longest running trolls in usenet history.
2. How long has he been trolling?
For well over a decade.
3. Where does he live?
Jean-Francois Mezei
86 Harwood Gate
Beaconsfield, QC H9W3A3
(514) 695-8259
4. What makes him such a malicious troll?
His trolling is constant, repetitious, relentless. Once he invades your
newsgroup he will stay for decades, troll around the clock, day in and day out,
every day of the year, for years and years on end. He does not listen to pleas
to stop, he does not listen to anything anyone tells him, he does not pay
attention when the misinformation/disinformation he posts is corrected, he just
goes right on trolling year in, year out like a little child holding his ears
closed while yelling "I can't hear you, I can't hear anything you say!"
5. What does he troll about?
His favorite subjects are USA-bashing and anything to do with sex. He hates the
USA and Americans and will hijack any thread and turn it into a USA-bashing
fest. If he can't do that then he'll just start making lewd posts.
6. What does he hate about the USA?
Everything! He is part of a larger group of Canadian trolls who have a visceral
hatred of the USA, motivated by envy mostly. The USA is a happier, better, more
successful version of their country and they can't stand it. Some of JF's
favorite troll bait is "the Bush regime", "the Bush-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz axis of
evil", "Americans are brainwashed", "Cars are evil", "SUVs are evil", "all
Americans are stupid" etc.
7. What about his sexual trolling?
Ah, that is JF at his trolling best. No sexual topic is too bizarre. Among his
favorites are child sexuality, masturbation, women's genitalia, sex toys,
circumcision, the sex lives of Americans (of course) ... the list is endless.
8. Circumcision???
Yes, JF trolled the circumcision newsgroups for years. He still likes to insert
circumcision into his trolling every now and then. Apparently, JF was
traumatized as a child because his parents, poor Hungarian immigrants to Canada,
left him uncircumcised when he was born, as is the custom in most of the world.
Growing up in Canada where male infant circumcision was prevalent at the time,
he was psychologically scarred (so he claims). As soon as he could he arranged
to get himself snipped, and then joined the brigades of circumcision
proselytizers in the newsgroups advocating the joys of a free willy. His main
argument is how much better he was able to masturbate after getting circumcised
without that "pesky foreskin" getting in the way of his enjoyment, and he has
made it his mission in life to spread the circumcision gospel.
9. What's his interest in child sexuality? That sounds kind of freaky.
Well, everything having to do with Mezei *is* freaky. Among the subjects dear
to his heart are the genitals of little boys and girls, especially little boy's
foreskins (and how tight they are) and little girls' hymens. He is also a
tireless activist and advocate that children should be taught to masturbate
early on so that they don't grow up "sexually repressed like Americans".
He also counsels all parents of boys that they constantly check their little
boys' penises and foreskins frequently to ensure a good fit, proper movement,
and that they be able to masturbate with no problems. Utopia for JF would be a
world full of parents manipulating their little boys' penises.
10. Ewww! This guy is sounding more and more disgusting by the minute! Are
you sure about all this stuff?
Yes, you can check the google archives for yourself. There's over a decade full
of Mezei trolling in there.
11. How can I find all that out, doesn't he change aliases all the time like
all trolls do?
Of course! See the appendix below for a list of many of his known trolling
aliases.
12. So where does this guy get so much time to troll, doesn't he work?
Ha ha ha! JF hasn't worked a day in his life! He's an adult baby, a grown man
who still lives at home with mommy and sleeps all day and trolls the newsgroups
all night. In his free time when he isn't trolling he likes to ride his bike
down to Dorval Airport and race the planes down the runway in his bike.
13. That seems strange, is he mentally ill or something?
Bingo! JF is a boy in a grown man's body. Psychologically he never got past
the age of 13 and got stuck in a world of bathroom humor (i.e. "pull my
finger!") and locker room antics that he has never been able to outgrow.
14. Speaking of locker rooms, I heard he has a sexual fetish about them, is
that true?
Yes! JF goes to the gym not to work out but to watch men in the locker room.
He loves to post about the male sexual organs he has seen in locker rooms over
the years, especially his unnatural obsession with foreskins. He stalks the men
in locker rooms trying to measure how much foreskin they have, or how little is
left if they have been circumcised. He gets extremely excited when he spots a
case of phimosis.
15. Oh my Gawd, this guy is nuts! He should be locked up in an insane asylum!
Yep, JF is certifiably insane. He lives in a black helicopter / tin foil hat
world where others are out to get him. The key to understanding JF is that he
sees himself as a VICTIM. To JF the world is out to get him, especially the
USA. Victimhood is what JF is all about.
What seems to have sent him over the edge was when the Canadian rail system was
"killed", in his words. He used to be a major train nut, spotting trains,
writing down their numbers and chasing them down at the train yard like a good
freak. Then he turned his attention to aviation. Major events that made him
fall head first deep into the abyss were the bankruptcy of Canadian Airlines and
their subsequent takeover by Air Canada (whom he sees as evil). So paranoid is
he that when an Air Canada plane crashed he claimed that Air Canada employees
went lurking about in the night with buckets of white paint to cover up the Air
Canada markings. He saw that as symbolic of a cover up of the crash
investigation. He has never recovered from this.
16. Where else does he hang out, I want to avoid him!
His main haunt on usenet is comp.os.vms, a newsgroup dedicated to some ancient,
arcane, obsolete piece of vax crapware that nobody has taken seriously for
decades. JF hangs out there with other misfits and social dropouts who share
his psychological traumas, crying for the good old vax days of yore. It's
really pathetic!
17. Where else does he hang out?
can.internet.highspeed, alt.cellular.fido, and a few other geeky computer
groups. For a while after the Shuttle Columbia disaster he invaded the
sci.space groups, sci.space.shuttle in particular, and trolled it relentlessly
with the anti-American, conspiracy theory crap he's so famous for. But they ran
him off that group and he had to go crawling back to comp.os.vms with his tail
between his legs, licking his wounds.
18. It sounds like comp.os.vms is the only group he respects and doesn't troll.
Pretty much. For a megatroll like JF it's impossible not to troll, so he slips
in troll bait every now and then, but by and large he respects comp.os.vms, and,
more importantly, he tries to hide his trolling activities from them so they
won't find out what a major netkook he is.
19. Wow, sounds like he should be exposed so they will know what kind of psycho
he is!
Exactly. Feel free to post all his trolls to comp.os.vms. And while you're at
it post them to can.internet.highspeed and alt.cellular.fido too. And to
alt.usenet.kooks, a group for the likes of JF, and news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.
20. What else can I do? Is there an abuse address?
Yes, you should send complaints along with copies of his troll posts to:
ab...@sympatico.ca
ab...@bellglobal.com
ab...@istop.com
And feel free to distribute this FAQ freely. Post it to newsgroups, email it to
people, you may host it at your own website, send it to newspapers and magazines
that do Internet articles or anything to do with Montreal or Canada, etc.
*** APPENDIX ***
List of some of the many trolling aliases used by Mezei over the years. This is
only a partial list, he has so many it's impossible to compile a full list.
jfm...@istop.com
jfmezei...@istop.com
jfm...@videotron.ca
jfm...@vl.videotron.ca
nospam....@videotron.ca
"jfmezei"@videotron.ca[nospam]
nobody <nob...@nobody.com>
nobody <nob...@nobody.net>
nobody <nob...@nobody.org>
nobody <nob...@nobody.info>
nobody <nob...@nobody.int>
nobody <nob...@nothing.nil>
nobody <nob...@null.dev>
muklak <muk...@eskimo.net>
Sheep skin <sh...@station.au>
snowy squirrel <squi...@nest.tree>
Conspiracy Theory <consp...@theory.org>
Lou Raccoon <L.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Flapping Labias <fla...@anatomy.org>
Throbbing vulva <t.v...@anatomy.org>
Twin Gonads <t...@gonads.com>
Loose Scrotum <l.sc...@anatomy.org>
Raised Organ <R.O...@anatomy.org>
Popped Cherry <P.Ch...@anatomy.org>
Monica Lewinski <billc...@westchester.com>
Deep Fried Foreskin <d...@mcdonalds.com>
Aroma of Smegma <ar...@chanel.org>
Wet fart <w.F...@smell.org>
Pubic dandruff <P.dan...@anatomy.org>
Voluptuous Nipple <V.ni...@anatomy.org>
Inserted Finger <I.Fi...@anatomy.org>
Pubic Nair <sha...@anatomy.org>
Flatulent Meatus <F.Me...@anatomy.org>
Lihk Mhygroin <L.My...@anatomy.org>
Pre Khum <P.K...@anatomy.org>
Phi Mosis <Phi....@anatomy.org>
Bal Anatis <Bal.A...@anatomy.org>
Fren Ullum <F.U...@anatomy.org>
Ivanna Getlaid <I.Ge...@onani.org>
Ivanna Wankalot <I.Wan...@onani.org>
Ivanna Umpalot <Hump...@drevil.com>
Wan Tnoneofit <W.Tno...@weirdnames.org>
Wan Itbad <W.I...@inneed.org>
Wan Towank <W.To...@anatomy.org>
Wan Tolik <w.t...@anatomy.org>
Testos Terone <t.te...@anatomy.org>
Upper Gonad <U.G...@anatomy.org>
Right Gonad <R.G...@anatomy.org>
Left Gonad <L.G...@anatomy.org>
Tyson's Glands <Tys...@anatomy.org>
Nose Hair <n.h...@anatomy.org>
Coronal Sulcus <C.Su...@anatomy.org>
Corpus Cavernus <man...@anatomy.org>
Armpit moisture <arm...@anatomy.org>
Onani Room <on...@hotels.com>
Arnie's Banana <wei...@terminator.com>
Raised eyebrows <r.eye...@anatomy.org>
Vas Deferens <V.def...@anatomy.org>
Naked Canuck <N.ca...@naturists.org>
Arni's socks <Smelly...@arnold.org>
Notable Exception <N.exc...@untied.com>
Unpopped Cherry <U.Ch...@anatomy.org>
Tatooed Ovaries <T.Ov...@anatomy.org>
Pierced eyelid <p.ey...@piercings.org>
Limp Tomato <limp....@vegetables.org>
Eggplant Earrings <e.ear...@piercings.org>
Banana Underpants <B.Unde...@hillfiger.org>
Naval Lint <na...@lint.mil>
Ingrown Toenail <i.to...@anatomy.org>
Empty Stomach <E.St...@anatomy.org>
Full Stomach <f.st...@anatomy.org>
Smelly Cat <S....@friends.nbc.com>
Torn Ligament <T.Lig...@anatomy.org>
Art Tistic <A.Ti...@modern.museum>
Furry Raccoon <F.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Wet Racoon <W.Ra...@wildnerness.org>
Mad Racoon <M.Ra...@wildlife.org>
Lazy Racoon <L.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Eaten Racoon <E.Ra...@mcdonalds.com>
Happy Raccoon <H.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Sleeping Racoon <S.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Hungry Racoon <H.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Horny Raccoon <H.Ra...@fauna.org>
Smart Raccoon <S.Ra...@wilderness.org>
George W Raccoon <GW.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Ronald McRaccoon <r.ra...@wilderness.org>
Thirsty Raccoon <T.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Johnny Raccoon <J.Ra...@wilderness.org>
Oshi Santo <O.S...@nx01.starfleet.org>
Oishi Chinko <O.Ch...@nx01.starfleet.org>
T.Yellow <T.Ye...@nowhere.com>
Q <qu...@continuum.net>
Borg Queen <1o...@borg.org>
Ronald Wilkerson <wilke...@sympatico.ca>
John Balterman <j.bal...@sympatico.ca>
*DISTRIBUTE FREELY* *DISTRIBUTE FREELY* *DISTRIBUTE FREELY*
me
> > It is kinda a funny use of the word subsidize. But the posters point
> > is that the walk up guy benefits from the parking lot, whether
> > he parks or not. The store is able to deliver the products they
> > have at the price they do because of all of them SUV driving customers.
> > If they had to rely upon walk up business only, the selection would
> > be narrower, and the prices higher. As such, the pedestrian customer
> > has an interest in bearing the same burden for the parking lot cost
> > of business as the folks who actually park there.
>
> You mean the big box stores that have low prices because of the
> economy of scale involved in selling to people who fill the back end
> of their SUVs and minivans with a pallet worth of stuff are subsidizing
> the walk up customer who just buys what he can put in his little
> urban shopping cart? I mean, in one transaction, the SUV guy probably
> spends in the $100-200 range for month supplies of stuff, while the
> walkup guy likely spends in the $50 range for a week or two worth
> of stuff at a higher unit cost than the SUV guy. Plus, he takes up the
> same amount of "store resources" to make his purchase, in terms of
> space and employee time to process his transaction, assuming it takes
> the same amount of time to scan a barcode whether its a single roll
> of paper towels or the 12-pack, so he probably makes 3-4 visits in a
> month instead of one.
Also, the selection can be broader because of the shear volume.
>
> OTOH, the store makes more profit off the walkup guy in a shopping cart.
> I guess someone would argue that the walkup guy is subsidizing the SUV
> guy, but I'd suspect the whole thing is close to a wash.
"more profit" in a percentage basis, but "total profit" is more of
a concern in most cases. Costco has some policy about maintaining
a relatively low profit margin, with the intent of pursuing extremely
high volumes, to reap a higher total profit. It, unfortunately, is
why frequently they don't carry certian items because the volume
can't be achieved.
>
> > There's an old story about a guy who makes leather purses. He
> > gets leather from cows that are being slaughtered for food. If he
> > doesn't make purses out of them, the leather is discarded. So he
> > gets a pretty good price for the leather. The accusation is that
> > the steak eaters are subsidizing the purse buyers. Then his purses
> > get so popular that the purse buyers become an excuse to
> > slaughter the cow, whether the meat is needed or not. So the price
> > of cow meat drops. Now the purse customers claim to be subsidizing
> > the meat eaters. But it's easy to understand how some folks see it
> > that way. But really no one is subsidizing anyone since they'd
> > all be buying meat or purses regardless. They do have a symbiotic
> > relationship however.
>
> This is a pretty smart example, though the point where leather demand
> exceeds corresponding beef demand, the input price changes
> dramatically. Haven't sat in an econ class in better than 10 years, but
> my guess is that the purse buyers would technically be correct only if
> their purse price rises.
I think the purpose of the example is that meat is treated effectively
as a commodity where as the purse isn't. The purses retail price is
relatively insensitive to the cost of the leather, but the meat price
is not.
Michael Thiele
>>
>>They do charge $10 - for the roundtrip. Presumably, one who takes
>>Airtrain to JFK takes it returning as well. For a ride of 2 or 3 miles
>>each way to Jamaica, that is excessive, particularly for a manless
>>operation. It's really a rip-off for Howard Beach. Still better off
>>taking the Q10 from Kew Gardens however slow.
>
> above by 20. Isn't that really what the whole argument about $5 is
> about? For that, I'd expect employee shuttles from rail stations.
> Is there any?
>
commuter fare for the airtrain, i think it is like 40 bucks.
Michael Thiele
>>
>>Is it possible to walk out the parking lot exit and around to the subway
>>station?
>
>
> Yes. The nearest parking lot exit is the Lefferts Boulevard exit, at
> the south edge of a massive five-roadway conglomeration of highways.
> The closest subway station is the N. Conduit station, about a mile
> away. There are two basic routes there: cross under(?) the
> megahighway and walk west along N. Conduit (the westbound service
> road, so to speak, although it carries mostly Belt Parkway overflow
> traffic) to the subway, or walk west through a construction site on
> airport property just outside the parking lot fence and cross over the
> Belt (etc.) on a two-lane road with no sidewalk. I don't know if the
> former route has a sidewalk; I've only done the latter (in the
> opposite direction).
>
> If you're planning on taking that walk after flying in, I recommend
> you do a trial run without luggage first.
>
> The only way across the subway tracks between the Belt etc. and the
> Rockaway peninsula is via the AirTrain turnstiles.
before walking a mile thru this in order to reach the subway, I would
rather take one of the 3 local bus lines that connect the terminals to
the subway, especially since transfers subway/bus are free.
Steven M. O'Neill
Robert Coté
"Baxter" <lbax01.s...@baxcode.com> wrote:
Here, I'll try again. _Y-o-u- -a-r-e- -c-o-r-r-e-c-t-._
Were I trying to "obfusticate", I could have done a much better job and
still left myself room to squirm out on a technicality. As it was, what
I wrote was not clear. Your correction was clear. The accusation of
obfuscation is unfounded. I don't generally take off for common
mispellings but didn't you just attack for far less than obfuscate/
obfusticate?
> > > And do note, the $3 fee only applies to construction (airport share =
> ~$28
> > > million) - not operating costs.
> >
> > Yeah riiiight. $28 million. Hmmm, generating $1.3 million per month it
> > should only be around for 22 months.
> >
So? How long is the PFC going to last?
> > >
> > > 'Course, you're welcome to challenge this - but to do so would undermine
> > > most of your other arguments about how much LRT costs.
> > >
> >
> > Not at all.
>
> Oh, yes - what figure are you up to now for MAX costs $5 billion? Or more?
>
Hard to tell without defining terms and too far off topic for airport
rail threads.
Exile on Market Street
> "nobody" <nob...@nobody.com> wrote in message
> news:4031140C...@nobody.com...
>
>>That can be done either by building more highways which cut off parts of a
>
> city from each other, take up large amounts of valuable land and generate
> noise-pollution or by building rapid transit systems.
>
> Is that saying in other words the rapid mass transit, most likely rail, does
> not create or add to any of those problems? That is patently not accurate.
On an absolute scale, no, it's not accurate.
On a relative scale, the amount of land consumed by an eight-lane
freeway is a good deal greater than that devoted to a two-track rail
line, even after throwing in the storage yards and maintenance shops.
Noise generated by vehicles on a freeway is constant; the same is not
true for trains.
--
-----------Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia----------
Managing Editor, _Penn Current_ / smi...@pobox.upenn.edu
215.898.1423 / fax 215.898.1203 / http://pobox.upenn.edu/~smiths/
Got news? Got events? Got stories? Send 'em to cur...@pobox.upenn.edu
If you see this line, the opinions expressed are mine, not Penn's
"There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is
not being talked about."
---------------------------------------------------------Oscar Wilde--
Jack May
"Exile on Market Street" <smi...@pobox.upenn.edu> wrote in message
news:c19vjk$bfug$1...@netnews.upenn.edu...
> On a relative scale, the amount of land consumed by an eight-lane
> freeway is a good deal greater than that devoted to a two-track rail
> line, even after throwing in the storage yards and maintenance shops.
> Noise generated by vehicles on a freeway is constant; the same is not
> true for trains.
This is only true because rail carries so few people. If you normalize the
data to area per person mile for highways vs rail, urban rail at least seems
to takes a lot more area.
Light rail at least in Santa Clara County CA. takes the same area as two to
three lanes of road and carries less than a lane of traffic. If you count
only the people rail gets out of cars, about the only political reason used
for rail, those three lanes of rail carry less than people than about a
tenth of a lane.
Since transit use is declining typically about 10% to 15% per decade all
over the world (as expected for a technology at the end of its life), the
space inefficiency will just get worse.
Robert Cote
Exile on Market Street <smi...@pobox.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Sancho Panza wrote:
>
> > "nobody" <nob...@nobody.com> wrote in message
> > news:4031140C...@nobody.com...
> >
> >>That can be done either by building more highways which cut off parts of a
> >
> > city from each other, take up large amounts of valuable land and generate
> > noise-pollution or by building rapid transit systems.
> >
> > Is that saying in other words the rapid mass transit, most likely rail, does
> > not create or add to any of those problems? That is patently not accurate.
>
> On an absolute scale, no, it's not accurate.
>
> On a relative scale, the amount of land consumed by an eight-lane
> freeway is a good deal greater than that devoted to a two-track rail
> line, even after throwing in the storage yards and maintenance shops.
> Noise generated by vehicles on a freeway is constant; the same is not
> true for trains.
What about after taking into account the Park-n-ride lots and all the
other additional infrastructure in support of rail transit development
patterns?
Miguel Cruz
> "Exile on Market Street" <smi...@pobox.upenn.edu> wrote:
>> On a relative scale, the amount of land consumed by an eight-lane
>> freeway is a good deal greater than that devoted to a two-track rail
>> line, even after throwing in the storage yards and maintenance shops.
>> Noise generated by vehicles on a freeway is constant; the same is not
>> true for trains.
>
> This is only true because rail carries so few people. If you normalize the
> data to area per person mile for highways vs rail, urban rail at least seems
> to takes a lot more area.
>
> Light rail at least in Santa Clara County CA. takes the same area as two to
> three lanes of road and carries less than a lane of traffic. If you count
> only the people rail gets out of cars, about the only political reason used
> for rail, those three lanes of rail carry less than people than about a
> tenth of a lane.
Is this the thing that you can see from Central Expressway south of Mountain
View? It appears to be the worst-case example of rail.
A well-planned and utilized system like DC's Metro or the NYC subway clearly
carries far more people per unit of time per width of footprint.
> Since transit use is declining typically about 10% to 15% per decade all
> over the world (as expected for a technology at the end of its life), the
> space inefficiency will just get worse.
I'd think this would alarm you. Combining 10-15% more road users plus
population growth with current congestion problems seems to indicate that in
a matter of years nobody will be going anywhere (except for those of us on
bikes).
mtravelkay
>
> Is this the thing that you can see from Central Expressway south of Mountain
> View? It appears to be the worst-case example of rail.
>
> A well-planned and utilized system like DC's Metro or the NYC subway clearly
> carries far more people per unit of time per width of footprint.
I don't know how busy the route to Mountain View gets, I always see a
lot of empty seats when I ride it. It has several stops along our main
location. I think it is a very convenient way to get from MV to anywhere
along Tasman, or to the Great Mall in Milpitas.
The route to downtown San Jose from near North First and Tasman seems to
be a lot busier.
nobody
> What about after taking into account the Park-n-ride lots and all the
> other additional infrastructure in support of rail transit development
> patterns?
Park and ride lots are near the railway stations and generally, you don't have
much housing right next to the train stations. Secondly, every car that parks
in the suburb is a car that won't need a packing space downtown where parking
space is at a big premium.
Jack May
"Miguel Cruz" <m...@admin.u.nu> wrote in message
news:Mh7_b.21590$wD5....@nwrddc03.gnilink.net...
> I'd think this would alarm you. Combining 10-15% more road users plus
> population growth with current congestion problems seems to indicate that
in
> a matter of years nobody will be going anywhere (except for those of us on
> bikes).
You are correct. I did the analysis for our SVMG transportation committee.
The official estimate are around 400K to 750K extra commuter over and above
the present 800K commuters by 2025. The dot-com increase was about 180K
extra commuters, which almost lead to grid lock.
BART to San Jose would have gotten about 5K to 10K commuters out of their
cars which would have no measurable effect on congestion reduction while
spending most of the transportation dollars if not more.
VTA has no plans in place beyond trying to keep BART alive. MTC has
effectively no plans except to keep pouring money into little used transit
system.
There are three possibilities that together have a reasonable chance of
preventing perpetual grid lock. Getting all the metering lights working
could increase capacity by roughly 200K at around $50M or so.
Removing all stoplight on the expressways with overpasses has been estimated
by VTA to be $2.5B, a fraction of BART to San Jose. A rough guess of 300K
capacity increase.
Getting magnets in the freeways and expressways for ITS and having
incentives for automobile companies to supply the in car technology could
increase capacity by maybe 500K or more over time with a cost of maybe $10M.
The ITS solution is not well studied and has a wide variation in my
estimates.
The problem can be solved but our transportation agencies don't care.
James Robinson
>
> Since transit use is declining typically about 10% to 15% per decade
> all over the world (as expected for a technology at the end of its
> life), the space inefficiency will just get worse.
Did you make that factoid up?
Transit ridership in the US is the highest it's been for the last 40
years. I also checked the statistics in France and the UK to see what
has been going on there, and the long term trends are up in both
countries.
Rail transit ridership in Europe, in particular, has significantly
increased, and prompted the construction of about a dozen light rail or
VAL lines in France, plus a number in the UK, with an additional 25 or
so planned.
They also experimented with a guided bus system, but have given up on
the technology, and are now intending to essentially encircle the city
with light rail lines running through the suburbs.
The tram lines in Paris have been a huge success, with one line
attracting triple the number of riders as the bus line it replaced. It
now handles about 65,000 passengers a day. Paris also just completed an
automated metro line (Meteor) which was needed to offset the
overcrowding on other heavily used lines across the city.
Since all of this is contrary to your contention about "technology at
the end of its life", how to you explain all these success stories?
James Robinson
>
> Getting magnets in the freeways and expressways for ITS and having
> incentives for automobile companies to supply the in car technology could
> increase capacity by maybe 500K or more over time with a cost of maybe $10M.
> The ITS solution is not well studied and has a wide variation in my
> estimates.
$10 million? You neglected to mention that $20B worth of equipment
would have to be added to automobiles to make it work.
Steve Lackey
"nobody" <nob...@nobody.int> wrote in message
news:4033F954...@nobody.int...
> re: big box stores profit of walkup guy versus SUV guy.
>
> You need to consider that a parking lot isn't free. The store must
purchase
> the land and pay taxes on the land which, for box stores, doesn't generate
any
> revenus. There are also costs associated with lighting and surveillance,
as
> well as snow removal.
>
> So part of the cost of the roll of toilet paper goes towards paying for
the
> parking lot, so walk-in customers end up subsidizing the SUV drivers.
Do SUV drivers subsidize passenger cars drivers? If passenger cars occupy
as much space as an SUV (assuming the SUV guy has the driving skills to
center in a marked lane) and buys less per trip, the SUV / minivan guy
"pays" more for his spot than the passenger car, assuming that all who go
to box discount stores fill to capacity, which is well within my personal
experience.
> In an airport, the equation is different because parking generates
revenus. Do
> those parking lots generate virtual profits because the full costs of the
> land/maintenance/taxes is not factored in ?
You're right. The equation is completely different. Airports aren't
private
commercial enterprises, but part of the transportation infrastrucutre, or
quasi-public goods. Infrastructure is also a necessity for local business
development.
Also, you're forgetting that a lot of air traffic isn't passenger related.
Shipping companies need lots of warehouse space, trucking space, and
easy access to highways and rail. Look out your window between
NJT 14A and 13A next time you head that way.
> What if governments were to mandate that airports must pay an environment
tax
> for each hectare of land that does not have vegetation ? (grass or forest)
?
> Perhaps airports would then see the savings in giving vast expanses of
paved
> land back to nature and fostering mass transit access to the airport.
Or else JFK and LGA would get smaller and EWR would get bigger. NJ
isn't famous for environmental conservation, when you consider how far EWR
is from Superfund sites. You don't want to create competition for jobs
based
on local environmental reg waivers.
> Also, airports generally have vast expanses of land around them due to
noise
> issues. Is the land more profitable as a paved parking lot, or would they
make
> greater profit leasing the land for industrial complex/wharehouses ?
Like LAX? LGA? JFK? Midway in Chicago? Haneda in Tokyo?
Seems that in 2+ airport cities, the trend is that one got surrounded
until unable to expand, forcing the construction of the second one much
farther away.
LAX overcrowding has lead to the John Wayne airport in Orange County,
EWR is the overflow from JFK/EWR, Narita is the overflow from Haneda
in Tokyo. O'Hare is the overflow from Midway. More?
Jishnu Mukerji
> LAX overcrowding has lead to the John Wayne airport in Orange County,
> EWR is the overflow from JFK/EWR,
.....but historically EWR was there much before JFK, and EWR is much
more capacity constrained than JFK both in terms of runways and
gates/slots; so wouldn't it be the case that JFK is the overflow
from EWR?;-)
Jishnu.
Sancho Panza
> EWR is the overflow from JFK/EWR, Narita is the overflow from Haneda
It may well be the other way around. For 20 years, since the advent of
People Express, Newark has on and off handled more passengers than Kennedy,
albeit it on fewer flights. The paucity of business flights in the morning
and midday at Kennedy is what led Jet Blue to see the opportunity to start
its low-cost operation there. On the other hands, the Port Authority has
long tried to resist the movement of international carriers to Newark,
starting unsuccessfully with SAS (a problem then because of its involvement
with Continental), and continuing through other European and then Asian and
Latin American carriers. Newark's strength has for some years been first the
busy Continental schedule and then the other carriers' business-oriented
flights, starting in the morning and running into the night.
Jack May
"James Robinson" <was...@212.com> wrote in message
news:40393FC1...@212.com...
> Jack May wrote:
> >
> > Since transit use is declining typically about 10% to 15% per decade
> > all over the world (as expected for a technology at the end of its
> > life), the space inefficiency will just get worse.
>
> Did you make that factoid up?
It is census data collected here
http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-intlmkt95.htm
>
> Transit ridership in the US is the highest it's been for the last 40
> years. I also checked the statistics in France and the UK to see what
> has been going on there, and the long term trends are up in both
> countries.
Go look at the census data above. The data is for market share not absolute
number which are not useful because they are not normalized for comparison.
> Rail transit ridership in Europe, in particular, has significantly
> increased, and prompted the construction of about a dozen light rail or
> VAL lines in France, plus a number in the UK, with an additional 25 or
> so planned.
Again look at the census data.
> They also experimented with a guided bus system, but have given up on
> the technology, and are now intending to essentially encircle the city
> with light rail lines running through the suburbs.
>
> The tram lines in Paris have been a huge success, with one line
> attracting triple the number of riders as the bus line it replaced. It
> now handles about 65,000 passengers a day. Paris also just completed an
> automated metro line (Meteor) which was needed to offset the
> overcrowding on other heavily used lines across the city.
>
> Since all of this is contrary to your contention about "technology at
> the end of its life", how to you explain all these success stories?
You have just given antidotal data that is unusable for proving anything.
Jack May
Are you claiming that mass produced electronics is very expensive. Lets
see, a computer to follow the magnets is about 50 cents to a dollar, so that
must mean that 200 billion cars are produced each year. Not exactly
realistic.
But wait, don't forget about cars are starting to put in electronic
steering, braking, and acceleration to cut cost because that "expensive"
electronics is cheaper than the cost of mechanical components. So the extra
cost may be negative as ITS accelerates the mass production of automotive
electronics.
If people can get to work without traffic jams and at high speed, it is
obvious they will pay the extra if there is an extra cost because their time
is very valuable and saving time is worth a lot of money. People then at
least have the choice of what they are willing to spend unlike taxes that
they are forced to pay.
Alex Rodriguez
>But wait, don't forget about cars are starting to put in electronic
>steering,
No such thing. All cars have a direct mechanical link from the steering
wheel to the wheels on the road.
>braking,
I'm pretty sure only Mercedes has this on limited models. Not something
that is common.
>and acceleration to cut cost because that "expensive"
>electronics is cheaper than the cost of mechanical components.
Not true. A motor and the associated electronic components that it takes
to run such a set up will never be cheaper than the simple linkages needed
to run these devices.
-------------
Alex
James Robinson
>
> James Robinson wrote:
> >
> > Jack May wrote:
> > >
> > > Since transit use is declining typically about 10% to 15% per decade
> > > all over the world (as expected for a technology at the end of its
> > > life), the space inefficiency will just get worse.
> >
> > Did you make that factoid up?
>
> It is census data collected here
>
> http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-intlmkt95.htm
That doesn't support what you said. The link is to market share, not
absolute ridership. In fact, ridership is increasing, just not at the
same rate as the overall market, hence a drop in market share. In
increase in overall ridership does not indicate a "technology at the end
of its life." Instead it indicates a technology that has a strong role
to play in the specific applications where it works well.
> > Transit ridership in the US is the highest it's been for the last 40
> > years. I also checked the statistics in France and the UK to see what
> > has been going on there, and the long term trends are up in both
> > countries.
>
> Go look at the census data above. The data is for market share not absolute
> number which are not useful because they are not normalized for comparison.
Absolute numbers are useful, in spite of your denials. If the absolute
numbers were dropping I would agree with your view. Instead, they are
rising, particularly in mature cities, where you would expect ridership
to have leveled off years ago.
> > Rail transit ridership in Europe, in particular, has significantly
> > increased, and prompted the construction of about a dozen light rail or
> > VAL lines in France, plus a number in the UK, with an additional 25 or
> > so planned.
>
> Again look at the census data.
I looked at current European statistics, and the absolute numbers are
rising, showing strong gains.
> > Since all of this is contrary to your contention about "technology at
> > the end of its life", how to you explain all these success stories?
>
> You have just given antidotal data that is unusable for proving anything.
"Antidotal"? isn't that to counteract poison? How fitting.
Try these data sources, if you really want to pore through them. The
ridership trend is up, just not quickly. Considering that most European
transit systems tend to be mature, and are not rapidly expanding, that
is a pretty good result. Where they are expanding, ridership is
increasing at a healthy rate.
James Robinson
>
> James Robinson wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Getting magnets in the freeways and expressways for ITS and having
> > > incentives for automobile companies to supply the in car technology
> could
> > > increase capacity by maybe 500K or more over time with a cost of maybe
> $10M.
> > > The ITS solution is not well studied and has a wide variation in my
> > > estimates.
> >
> > $10 million? You neglected to mention that $20B worth of equipment
> > would have to be added to automobiles to make it work.
>
> Are you claiming that mass produced electronics is very expensive. Lets
> see, a computer to follow the magnets is about 50 cents to a dollar, so that
> must mean that 200 billion cars are produced each year. Not exactly
> realistic.
Fifty cents is certainly not realistic. The last data I saw stated that
fully 20% of the manufacturing cost of some new automobiles was in the
electronics, and that the cost - not price - of the electronics in the
average car is in the order of $1800. This is strictly the cost of the
diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits, and not the final price
charged to the consumer, which is multiplied many times. It is also far
beyond fifty cents worth of parts.
Beyond the fact that a replacement, mass-produced, fifty cent engine
controller for my car has inflated to $900 when I want to buy it, and
the optional ABS system was about $1,000 when the car was new, do you
really think the auto manufacturers are going to accept product
liability for a system that takes over control on the car for a few
pennies? It doesn't matter that it might be safe overall, the first time
it steers a car directly into a cow instead of swerving around it, there
will be an expensive lawsuit, which the manufacturers will lose. They
will price it to cover that anticipated cost.
> But wait, don't forget about cars are starting to put in electronic
> steering, braking, and acceleration to cut cost because that "expensive"
> electronics is cheaper than the cost of mechanical components.
The primary motivation is not because of their lower initial cost, but
because they free up room for other belt driven components, and they
lower the weight compared to hydraulic pumps. The down side is that
they use a lot more power, and are one of the things that are pushing
the move to a 42V electrical system.
> So the extra cost may be negative as ITS accelerates the mass
> production of automotive electronics.
Wishful thinking. ITS will be an optional, stand-alone extra on cars.
With its safety ramifications, and since it is in technological infancy,
the manufacturers won't risk applying it as part of an integrated
system. Further, since not everyone will want it, they won't want to
push up the base price for something that has limited appeal. It isn't
like Gilette giving away the razors to sell the blades later.
> If people can get to work without traffic jams and at high speed, it is
> obvious they will pay the extra if there is an extra cost because their time
> is very valuable and saving time is worth a lot of money.
And how many people will that be? It won't likely be retrofitable to
older cars, so the basic system will have to be supported by new car
buyers. If someone drives an F-150 pickup in Leadville, Colorado, and
no ITS equipped roads are within 1,000 miles, they won't see any need to
opt for the system on their vehicle. That leaves only a few people that
both have the money to buy new, live in an area with a network of
equipped roads, and need the vehicle to regularly drive on the roads
while they are congested. The mass-production is getting pretty small.
> People then at least have the choice of what they are willing
> to spend unlike taxes that they are forced to pay.
You are advocating installing it in vehicles to lower the unit cost,
whether a purchaser wants it or not. How is that choice? I also have
little choice on spending my transpiration dollar on anything but cars
these days. I certainly don't recall voting for the Big Dig, yet I am
paying for it. There isn't a public transportation system available
that could be called competition. There simply is no choice now, nor
would there be with ITS.
James Robinson
>
> jack...@comcast.net says...
>
> >But wait, don't forget about cars are starting to put in electronic
> >steering,
>
> No such thing. All cars have a direct mechanical link from the steering
> wheel to the wheels on the road.
There are some systems now applied to cars. I believe that Honda was
the first with a production vehicle. They use an electric servomotor to
provide variable power assist to a basically mechanical linkage. Using
the servomotor to provide full control of steering is feasible.
> >braking,
>
> I'm pretty sure only Mercedes has this on limited models. Not something
> that is common.
Electronic control of the hydraulic braking system is fairly common. A
number of European manufacturers use it as part of traction control,
where the brakes are applied to slipping wheels, and of course for ABS.
These include companies like VW/Audi, Volvo, BMW, and others.
Jishnu Mukerji
> Alex Rodriguez wrote:
>
>>jack...@comcast.net says...
>>
>>>braking,
>>
>>I'm pretty sure only Mercedes has this on limited models. Not something
>>that is common.
>
>
> Electronic control of the hydraulic braking system is fairly common. A
> number of European manufacturers use it as part of traction control,
> where the brakes are applied to slipping wheels, and of course for ABS.
> These include companies like VW/Audi, Volvo, BMW, and others.
And then there is blended regenerative braking in the likes of
Toyota Prius and other hybrids.
Bill Blomgren
>beyond fifty cents worth of parts.
>
>Beyond the fact that a replacement, mass-produced, fifty cent engine
>controller for my car has inflated to $900 when I want to buy it, and
>the optional ABS system was about $1,000 when the car was new, do you
>really think the auto manufacturers are going to accept product
>liability for a system that takes over control on the car for a few
>pennies? It doesn't matter that it might be safe overall, the first time
>it steers a car directly into a cow instead of swerving around it, there
>will be an expensive lawsuit, which the manufacturers will lose. They
>will price it to cover that anticipated cost.
Makes me wonder what happens when you have those nice magnetic pickups in the
pavement, and start getting large frost heaves with trucks pound the road to
death. What will the control system do when it fails to find magnets
periodically? Here, the road surface on Interstate 77 is already falling
apart. It was rebuilt in 1995, but is already crumbling with large chunks
getting lifted out and replaced. Those events are preceded by potholes
suitable for dropping VW Bugs into.. What happens when a series of the
magnetic critters happens to end up on the side of the road? I can see that
happening all too easily with the shoddy maintenance on the highways.
Naturally, the state won't take responsibility. Making the auto manufacturer
responsible could be a very interesting task when there is a failure that
causes death or simple maiming. Simple maiming is great because there are
tons of dead presidents involved in those lawsuits.
Somehow, I simply can't imagine it working, when you have a mix of new and 25
year old clunkers trying to compete for the same 2-3 lanes. Build all new
roads for only new cars? With what budget?
Steve Lackey
> older cars, so the basic system will have to be supported by new car
> buyers. If someone drives an F-150 pickup in Leadville, Colorado, and
> no ITS equipped roads are within 1,000 miles, they won't see any need to
> opt for the system on their vehicle. That leaves only a few people that
> both have the money to buy new, live in an area with a network of
> equipped roads, and need the vehicle to regularly drive on the roads
> while they are congested. The mass-production is getting pretty small.
>
> > People then at least have the choice of what they are willing
> > to spend unlike taxes that they are forced to pay.
>
> You are advocating installing it in vehicles to lower the unit cost,
> whether a purchaser wants it or not. How is that choice? I also have
> little choice on spending my transpiration dollar on anything but cars
> these days. I certainly don't recall voting for the Big Dig, yet I am
> paying for it. There isn't a public transportation system available
> that could be called competition. There simply is no choice now, nor
> would there be with ITS.
We don't even have an effective way to warn drivers of severe
traffic delays or road closures due to accidents. Drivers don't find out
until they approach the end of a traffic jam. Forget the "magnets" in
cars you're talking about here. Even a rubber tube in the road to
count cars every few miles combined with live data feeds (i.e. cars/minute)
would give a better indication of whether traffic is moving and how fast,
and we're not even close, and that's just 1980's technology. A
$100 palm pilot in a sealed case every couple of miles would be
computational overkill for this kind of work.
Instead of telemetry, cars are more likely to have toll payment
ransponders, and that would be good enough to count cars,
and voluntary. You don't have to count all the cars, just be able
to estimate how fast the cars that you *can* count are going.
Forget these pie-in-the-sky technologies as cures to traffic jams when
we don't even implement data collection and forcasting systems we've
had the technology for more than 20 years. Some of this "advanced"
ITS is high school science fair stuff.
Steve Lackey
> Jack May wrote:
> >
> > Since transit use is declining typically about 10% to 15% per decade
> > all over the world (as expected for a technology at the end of its
> > life), the space inefficiency will just get worse.
>
> Did you make that factoid up?
>
> Transit ridership in the US is the highest it's been for the last 40
> years. I also checked the statistics in France and the UK to see what
> has been going on there, and the long term trends are up in both
> countries.
> Rail transit ridership in Europe, in particular, has significantly
> increased, and prompted the construction of about a dozen light rail or
> VAL lines in France, plus a number in the UK, with an additional 25 or
> so planned.
>
note the use of "per decade", when the trends you're talking about are
over the past few years. We'll have to wait another generation before we
revisit these trends over decades. If you talk about the 1950's vs. the
1980's, it's a whole different conversation.
Are we at a turning point since, say, 1998, or 2001? It's a very hard
argument to make statistically without looking at other trends, like
long term changes in suburbanization, urban renewal, etc.
James Robinson
>
> "James Robinson" <was...@212.com> wrote in message
> news:40393FC1...@212.com...
> > Jack May wrote:
> > >
> > > Since transit use is declining typically about 10% to 15% per decade
> > > all over the world (as expected for a technology at the end of its
> > > life), the space inefficiency will just get worse.
> >
> > Did you make that factoid up?
> >
> > Transit ridership in the US is the highest it's been for the last 40
> > years. I also checked the statistics in France and the UK to see what
> > has been going on there, and the long term trends are up in both
> > countries.
> > Rail transit ridership in Europe, in particular, has significantly
> > increased, and prompted the construction of about a dozen light rail or
> > VAL lines in France, plus a number in the UK, with an additional 25 or
> > so planned.
> >
>
> note the use of "per decade", when the trends you're talking about are
> over the past few years. We'll have to wait another generation before we
> revisit these trends over decades. If you talk about the 1950's vs. the
> 1980's, it's a whole different conversation.
Actually it isn't. The trend has been up since about 1970.
> Are we at a turning point since, say, 1998, or 2001? It's a very hard
> argument to make statistically without looking at other trends, like
> long term changes in suburbanization, urban renewal, etc.
See above.
Brian Robinson OR Carol Goter Robinson OR Bill Robinson
>
> That doesn't support what you said. The link is to market share, not
> absolute ridership. In fact, ridership is increasing, just not at the
> same rate as the overall market, hence a drop in market share. In
> increase in overall ridership does not indicate a "technology at the end
> of its life." Instead it indicates a technology that has a strong role
> to play in the specific applications where it works well.
That's a ridiculously weak argument for expansion. "They're useful in some
situations, it's a niche technology, it's OK that overall market share is
declining 10% per decade" is a loser argument, but transit advocates
(especially trolley fans, since LRT systems have absolutely the lowest
potential for market share growth outside of cities that were built
specifically for light rail) refuse to come up with a better one.
It makes me sad.
> Absolute numbers are useful, in spite of your denials. If the absolute
> numbers were dropping I would agree with your view. Instead, they are
> rising, particularly in mature cities, where you would expect ridership
> to have leveled off years ago.
IOW your support for transit expansion hangs by a thread. Ridership did
level off years ago and is only now returning to 1960s numbers (which were
not particularly stratosheric to begin with). And for whatever reason
transit use might begin dropping absolute terms again, perhaps with a
recession. Would you then agree with the view that it should be scrapped?
You seem to say so above. Still no sign of a coordinated effort by transit
users to get new lines built...
danny burstein
>Uhhhh, wrong. Idlewild, which was the airport's first name, was
>constructed in 1948, with just one terminal on 1,000 acres of land.
>Today, it has nine and covers 5,000 acres.
>Likewise, Newark Intl. was also constructed in 1948.
The latter, of course, explains why NYC's Mayor LaGuardia (1934-1945) got
really, really, pissed when his plane landed in Newark.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Robert Browne
"danny burstein" <dan...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:c3ibdr$fnm$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In <471p50d7eucqb66tm...@4ax.com> Cyrus Afzali
<pns...@lnubb.pbz> writes:
> >Likewise, Newark Intl. was also constructed in 1948.
>
> The latter, of course, explains why NYC's Mayor LaGuardia (1934-1945) got
> really, really, pissed when his plane landed in Newark.
Newark Airport was in existance prior to 1948. We have pictures in our
family album of some one of our relatives boarding a Ford Trimotor at
Newark. I remember going there in the late 30's/early 40's to pick up my
cousin.
I went to work for EAL in 1948 and Newark was well established at that time.
Bob
_____________________________________________________
mtravelkay
Officially, 1928, according to
http://www.panynj.gov/aviation/ehisfram.htm
cari...@removemycaribbean.info
wrote:
>Uhhhh, wrong. Idlewild, which was the airport's first name, was
>constructed in 1948, with just one terminal on 1,000 acres of land.
>Today, it has nine and covers 5,000 acres.
>
>Likewise, Newark Intl. was also constructed in 1948.
Not so.
Newark airport was opened in 1928. I live in Jersey City NJ and even
as a child in the 1930s I recall being taken there to watch the planes
land and take off. WAere it not raing at the moment, I could be
seeing, out my window, the late evening traffic holding pattern that
cicles up from the south
As for biggest and busiest, it's was Newark for a long while before
that statistic moved to Chicago, then Atlamta, etc.
Here's just one itrem I googled.
"Newark Airport was the first major airport in the New York area: it
opened on October 1, 1928, occupying an area of reclaimed marshland.
Newark was the busiest airport in the world until LaGuardia Airport
opened several years later, dividing New York's air traffic and
allowing Midway International Airport to take the lead"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark_Liberty_International_Airport
and here's the official web site for Newarl Airport
http://www.panynj.gov/aviation/ewrframe.HTM
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Gregory Morrow
Robert Browne wrote:
I've got a 1932 _National Geographic_ with several air travel articles.
Newark is prominently featured - it was a large airport even back then....
--
Best
Greg
Steve Lackey
"Jishnu Mukerji" <jishnu....@hp.com> wrote in message
news:403b9308$1...@usenet01.boi.hp.com...
You're right, EWR is older than I suggested. I think Teterboro was intended
to be overflow from EWR, but local opposition and sufficient room for
expansion prevented this from happening...
Jishnu Mukerji
> constructed in 1948, with just one terminal on 1,000 acres of land.
> Today, it has nine and covers 5,000 acres.
>
Actually Port Authority took over the operation of EWR under a lease from the
City of Newark on March 22, 1948. That is where that 1948 date came from. It was
originally opened on October 1, 1928.
Jishnu.
Clark F Morris
>On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:21:29 -0400, "Clark F. Morris, Jr."
><cfm...@istar.ca> wrote:
>
>n
>>Station, I doubt Newark is getting much if anything in the way of taxes
>>or in lieu payments.
>>
>the city of newark was recently given 200 million dollars for lease
>payments
For the Airport and the Port Newark facilities? I was referring to
taxes on Penn Station and other commuter/long distance passenger rail
related property which I believe are now tax exempt in New Jersey.
This is a drastic change from the 1950's when the railroads were
considered a cash cow to be aggressively milked. I am not certain
about freight rail property.
>
>
>
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