Unable to connect, retrying...
Online collaborative whiteboard. Powerful, engaging with timer, emoji's, commenting and voting.
Search for RSS feeds
Register

classroom

Two of New York's major airports will need major expansions to handle the expected increase of 50 million passengers annually by the 2030s, according to a report issued by the Regional Plan Association Thursday.   New York's airports, which already lead the nation in congestion and delays, expect passenger numbers to skyrocket from 100 million to 150 million per year. The Association said the way to handle the excess demand is is to build new runways to handle more flights. LaGuardia has no room to expand. So RPA is proposing to add a runway to Newark-Liberty by demolishing and rebuilding a terminal and moving two cargo areas. It also recommends adding a runway to JFK by filling in part of Jamaica Bay. Total estimated price tag: $15 billion. Taking advantage of the new runways depends on installing a new flight control system that replaces radar with GPS, allowing planes to follow more efficient flight patterns while flying closer to each other. The Federal Aviation Administration is in the early phase of a 20-year, $22 billion roll-out of the technology, called NextGen, which will need to prove itself in field conditions. RPA considered other options, such as shifting some of the burden to local airports like Stewart in Newburgh and MacArthur in Long Island, along with improving rail connections to the airports and between cities. The report says those improvements would bring gains but not nearly enough. Area airports currently move 236 flights per hour during peak hours. In 20 years, given increased demand, they will need to add 78 additional peak hour flights. RPA concluded that only more runways and a drastically improved flight control system will add enough flights to approach that number. But airport expansions, besides being costly, bring more noise to local neighborhoods and carry environmental costs. On the other hand, expansion advocates say, doing nothing will slowly overwhelm area airports and, by 2030, cost the regional economy as many as 125,000 jobs, $6 billion in wages and $16 billion in sales each year. At a conference on Thursday that brought together business and political leaders to absorb and discuss the association's findings, a group of planners chatted during a break about the political battles that surely lay ahead. Then grew quiet until one of them said: "Are you ready? Strap in."

Feed:

The Rubber Room

The New York City public school system is huge. More than a million students, all being taught by 75,000 teachers. Except, a few hundred of those teachers are being paid NOT to teach. These are t...

https://beta.prx.org/stories/253610

That's Democracy

That's Democracy

A teacher gives his students lesson about democracy that they'll never forget. Performed by Peter McNerney, Russ Armstrong, Alexis Lambright, Fiona Bradford, Teddy Shivers, Oscar Montoya, and Ben...

https://beta.prx.org/stories/217156

That's Democracy

That's Democracy

A teacher gives his students lesson about democracy that they'll never forget. Performed by Peter McNerney as Mr. Mohr, Russ Armstrong as Eric, and Alexis Lambright as Margaret, with  Fiona Brad...

https://beta.prx.org/stories/217186