Port Authority Capital Plan 2006-2015

Some interesting items listed in the PA's Capital Plan, including $550 Million for the PATH extension to Newark Airport.

www.panynj.com/AboutthePortAuthority/
InvestorRelations/pdf/2006-2015_capital_proj.pdf

Interestingly enough, it says "PATH extension to EWR", not to EWR Monorail station, implying that it'll serve the terminals. But that's a long way off (estimated project time stretched out to ten years from now), because as the document says:

Numbers in grey font are not included in the current PA capital plan. These include potential future PA capital projects that have not received Board approval. The federal share of such projects, or potential funding by other public organizations or private partners, is listed as ‘Other’.

Bingo, Irish Chieftan — you found the fine print! A year or two ago, I read in a forum that the PATH-EWR connection was approved by the PA in some way (which in hindsight was probably just an approval to make it a "potential" project). I was pretty excited, but skeptical — and you confirm my skepticism as well-founded!

We'll see if it ever happens even in 10 years — it will be very hard politcally for the PA to cough up all that $$ for such a NJ-oriented project. We'll probably see high speed rail to JFK first.

JS

Irish, I think "PATH Extension to EWR" means to the EWR station, not to the terminals. I don't think you'll ever see PATH trains serving the terminals, but I do think that you will see them eventually going to the EWR NEC Station.

I noticed the mention of a one seat ride into Mid-Town from JFK. Interesting. Could've been done a whole lot easier by re-building the LIRR Rockaway Branch. This might belong in LIRR forum but it's PA budget so I posted here.

Yes, the JFK-Midtown one-seat ride has been feeding a lot of grist into the rumor mill. Nobody knows what form it will take as yet. As far as the LIRR's Rockaway Beach branch is concerned, the NY politicians have a paralyzing fear of NIMBYs, so instead of trains, you'll have burglars and homeless people on that ROW for years to come. (To my mind, it would be even today the perfect route for a LIRR express train from NY Penn or GCT to the JFK terminals, much like London's Heathrow Express from Paddington Station.)

I myself don't believe that PATH will serve the EWR terminals; however, the way it's worded in the report (it says, literally, "PATH extension to EWR" instead of "PATH extension to Airtrain Newark NEC Station") makes the language vague enough to make some people think that the PATH may indeed go into the airport grounds and possibly the terminals...

Amtrak uses the code EWR for Newark Airport's Rail Link Station, the station is airport property now so PATH service to EWR is correct.

Yes, but PATH is not Amtrak. Consider what the PA means by "JFK", to compare.

No but the station is owned by the Port Authority and the station's code is EWR, and Newark's is NWK. The PATH does not have a separate code for Newark Penn, they use NWK.

The Port Authority can't have two EWRs (the station and the airport). They did not specify the NEC station, which still can imply the airport itself.

IF PATH was extended to the airport terminals, I wonder how they'd implement the actual connections to the terminals?

Logically, the line would probably be overhead the interior ring roadway which passes on the landside of the terminals.

The PA has never been eager to reduce parking revenues, which is prob one reason why the Monorail took so long to install. Compare that to the huge garages at Terminal C, which went up almost overnight.

I'd say that PA parking revenue is safe in spite of any rail-based mass transportation that serves their airports; certainly public transit, like parking, will always have a limit to its capacity.

Irish Chieftain wrote:The Port Authority can't have two EWRs (the station and the airport). They did not specify the NEC station, which still can imply the airport itself.

Just because the Newark Airport rail link station is across the road from the airport does not mean it's not on airport property, it's a few hundred feet from the threshold of runway 11/29. The Rail link station and the access road leading to the station are Port Authority property, so if they say it's part of Newark Airport it's part of Newark Airport.

That's a very sketchy definition of terms, there. Certainly the PA can make "EWR" mean anything they want (it has to be their property outright, however); but it would make more sense to define the "Airtrain Newark NEC station", because to most people EWR means the airport; and the PA doesn't use the term "JFK" for anything else besides JFK Airport.

Don't forget about the writing in gray, though.