Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
None of this is true. All provide (or in the case of LGA, will soon provide) direct rail access to the city center.
Of course there isn't direct rail access from every terminal to the city center, but that's impossible in any major city with airports with multiple terminals. You cannot have a single train terminal serving multiple terminals. Doesn't exist anywhere. And you cannot have a single city center destination in a major city center. Also doesn't exist anywhere.
If you land in Paris, for example, you have to transfer within the airport to the RER terminal, and then the RER doesn't deliver you to the city center, without transferring at Gare du Nord or Chatelet. Paris has an enormous city center, so that would be impossible. The RER B line is east of the major business destinations, and most of the hotels.
And even if you ran separate rail lines from every terminal to the city center, would be impossible, bc there isn't one common center city location that would provide direct service for visitors. For example, Heathrow has excellent rail service to the city center, but Paddington Station is nowhere near the primary business and travel destinations, so a transfer is usually required.
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This conversation has gone way off tangent, but there are
no trains from Manhattan that take you to either JFK, Newark or LaGuardia. With JFK and Newark, you board a commuter or subway train to an airport parkway station, and then transfer to the AirTrain people mover. Newark was due to be connected in a similar fashion but the AirTrain proposal has since been cancelled.
The goal of such services isn’t to provide a direct route to every possible final destination (which train does?), but to provide the most efficient way to transport millions of people to/from the city centre to airports. Hence the vast majority of major international cities have developed (and continue to develop) direct rail lines, whether it be metro, commuter, regional rail or dedicated express lines/services. Many of which also operate rolling stock with increased space for luggage.
Charles de Gaulle is served by RER (stopping and non-stop to Gare du Nord), TGV and regional train services, and from 2025 will be served by a dedicated CdG Express service. Granted the old T1 doesn’t have a dedicated station (accessible via a people mover from the nearby RER station), but for context, 70% of gates at CdG are located around the giant T2. London Heathrow is accessible from Central London not just via the Heathrow Express, but also the (slower) Piccadilly Line and TfL Rail. TfL Rail is the precursor to Crossrail (further increasing access across London) and of course there are plans for additional tunnels to increase access to the west and south.
Rail ridership from either Heathrow or CdG is
3x that of the JFK AirTrain via Jamaica and Howard Beach. Gatwick Airport station is a single station but busier than the likes of MNR’s Hudson line and many other New York commuter lines. Direct access to airports aren’t novelties but heavily utilised valuable assets. The real absence of such services to New York’s airports has more to do with a lack of integrated planning, the lack of sufficient paths on said corridors, and a lack of infrastructure investment to create those paths (at the airport, city and regional level).