New York Airtrain Rail Link, USA

Kennedy Airport, the biggest international gateway to New York, is to receive a new, fast, direct link with the city centre, which promises to dramatically slash journey times. The project has strong parallels with an extension to London's underground system to Heathrow Airport. This was first opened in 1983, extended in the mid-1990s, and has proved a great success. Airtrain will tie the nine terminals at John F Kennedy airport into the city's existing mass transit systems, both light and heavy rail. City planners have recognised the need for a dedicated airport link since the 1960s, but proposals foundered for many reasons, including cost, environmental concerns, lack of co-ordination with existing transit systems and a lack of political will. Now, the promoters of Airtrain say 30 years of congestion have eroded New York's competitiveness as an international trade centre, and among firms who relocated from the city, poor access to the airports was cited as the second most common reason for their move.

AIRPORT CITY LINK

A new, circular line will link the airport's seven terminals, as well as providing a new connection for staff to their main car parking area, and ultimately, link with the subway to the heart of the city, and the A-train network for destinations further afield.

The links will be financed through the fare box, and from capital funds of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This is a bi-state body, which also runs a Hudson River crossing service linking the two states, and operates two New York bus terminals, which provide services from the centre of the city to Manhattan.

All passengers leaving Kennedy Airport have been paying a $3 local tax for many years, and this will meet a large portion of the new line's costs, estimated at $1,500 million. About 4,150 people will be involved in the link's construction, while Port officials anticipated that the work would bring up to $580 million into the local economy. The total cost of the new link is estimated at $1.5 billion and promoters of the system boast that no local or state tax money will be used in the finance package.

Target journey times from downtown (city centre) to the airport are around 45mins, with the major interchanges at Howard Beach and Jamaica being brought within 12mins of the airport. This compares with an up to two-hour journey currently faced by air passengers to and from the city centre, while the scheme's promoters also boast that a trip around the airport's terminals by Airtrain will take just 8mins, compared with 20 before the system was built.

INFRASTRUCTURE

The new line's natural starting point is Jamaica, north-west of the airport itself. The total length of new track is approximately 8.4 miles, which consists of a two-mile loop connecting the airport's terminals in the Central Terminal Area; a 3.1 mile extension to the Jamaica transportation center, from where connections are available into rail, bus and subway lines operated by Federal Circle; and a 3.3 mile extension, linking the new line with the subway at Howard Beach.

Ten new stations will be built in all, six serving the airport's nine terminals, plus Howard Beach, Federal Circle/Rental Car, Jamaica Station and Long-Term/Employee Parking. Each will be elevated, on pre-cast, post-tensioned concrete segments. They will be fully enclosed, heated and air-conditioned, with platform doors, wide escalators, large glass enclosed elevators, and moving walkways to connect them to the airline terminals. Platform lengths are a standard 240ft.

ROLLING STOCK

Three companies have come together to form the AirRail Transit Consortium, which won the bid to design, build and operate the system from a short-list of five. Among them is rolling stock builder Bombardier, which will be responsible for supplying the new trains. It won a contract worth $930 million in April 1998 to supply 32 linear induction motor-powered cars, based on the Vancouver Skytrain design.

SIGNALLING AND COMMUNICATIONS

The system will be controlled by a moving block signalling network, whereby each section of the double-tracked network will be divided into signal sections, the size of which will vary according to the mean speed of any train occupying it.

The trains will run under automatic train control, which will transmit details of each one's location back to the central control hub, from where the whole system will be monitored. While ATC will be the main mode of operation, the system will be capable of running manually in an emergency. Stations will be equipped with dynamic displays showing real-time information of train movements, while a PA system and CCTV cameras will be used to keep operators in touch with what is happening at stations. Trains will also be equipped with two-way radio for communication with the control centre.

JOHN F KENNEDY AIRPORT

The start of work on the Airtrain scheme coincided with the airport's celebrations of its 50th anniversary. The ring around the airport terminals, and the extension to Howard Beach were expected to be complete by 2002, with the final phase linking the new system to Jamaica expected on stream the following year. Initial projections suggested 34,000 people a day could be attracted onto Airtrain. This would make it America's second most heavily used direct airport link. At the same time as the system has been constructed, John F Kennedy airport itself has been undergoing a $7 billion facelift, involving improvements to terminals, roadways, and other facilities.

Click here for printable version