Be careful what you wish for. The long-desired rebuilding of NYC’s LaGuardia airport is well under way, and that’s good. But the apparent inability of the construction planners to keep things moving around it is not.
Reports last week and early this week show huge backups as roads into and out of the airport are alternately blocked and shifted; many passengers were spotted giving up, getting out across the highway from the airport, and dragging their bags across, hoping not to miss their planes or become traffic victims.
The $4 billion overhaul includes building a new terminal where the main garage was, a new garage elsewhere, two other new terminals and an improved network of roads. But it appears that the project, scheduled for completion in 2020, didn’t include enough planning for how to keep traffic moving through.
The Port Authority, which operates the airport, acknowledged that conditions are bad. Among their solutions: get more passengers to arrive by bus, encourage passengers to drive to a remote lot and take a shuttle from there, and to arrive 2-1/2 hours before flight time—not a popular idea for an airport where most flights are 1-1/2 hours or less.
For more details from USA Today, click HERE
