Quote:
Originally Posted by Quixote
^ Is nito correct that the infrastructure is already in place for an express rail airport link between, say, Jamaica and Grand Central?
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No, this isn't true. There's a rail line, of course, but it's at capacity into Manhattan. And Jamaica isn't JFK. There's a second LIRR tunnel into Midtown but it won't have service for a few more years (East Side Access).
JFK Airtrain was built to heavy rail/LIRR standards, so you could hypothetically run LIRR directly from JFK, but if such a service were started, it would go through Brooklyn, because that route has capacity, and they wanted to tie it into WTC reconstruction.
But additional tunneling would have to be dug, and the lower level of the WTC station would have to be finished. Bloomberg supported this extension, but it was controversial, never fully funded, and killed under DeBlasio. It may someday be resurrected but would cost billions and still won't serve most visitors, and I can think of about a dozen higher priority projects.