Studying Stewart Airport Rail Link

The New York Sun reports that the MTA is looking to study a rail link that would tie Stewart International Airport to the Port Jervis Line and Manhattan.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is studying a one-seat, 75-minute train ride to Stewart International Airport in Orange County, N.Y., from Pennsylvania Station that could help divert more passengers from the three overcrowded regional airports, stimulate the region's economic growth, and increase real estate values upstate.

Transit officials say a three-mile spur off the Port Jervis line on Metro-North Railroad, which could cost more than $600 million to construct, could be an efficient way to attract passengers and airlines to the underutilized upstate airport, where the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is expected to take control of operations in October.

The airport now is accessible only by country roads, and driving to the airport from Manhattan takes about an hour and a half without traffic. The former military base, located about 60 miles north of Manhattan, accommodated 300,000 passengers last year; transit officials estimate that its infrastructure could be expanded to process up to 10 million passengers annually.

With the city's air routes as congested as its streets, business leaders say making Stewart International Airport accessible to New Yorkers is crucial if the city is to remain a financial and business capital. "Stewart Airport is the obvious solution, but only if it is serviced by fast rail into the city," the executive director and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, said. The rail link "will pay for itself, in terms of the economic growth it will enable in the region."

This is a proposal that I've suggested on this page in the past. However, I find it quite curious how and why the cost per mile of construction is more than ten times higher than the cost to build in Japan or France - and that's construction costs for high speed lines, although it is significantly cheaper than the cost to build the AirTrain connection between the LIRR and JFK Airport.

A three mile spur line from Port Jervis should cost considerably less than $200 million per mile, so I'm interested in knowing why the costs are estimated the way they are.

Proposals along these lines from 1994 can be found on the MTA website. Indeed, that study says that the Stewart Airport link should cost about $200 million, which is still high ($66.6 million per mile). The MTA is soliciting bids on a new study. No doubt that they'll find the same options and the costs will be considerably higher.

I expect that if this does come to pass, the costs of construction will be borne by those flying in and out of the airport via a fee - perhaps $5 per one-way ticket.