Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced a call for ideas in the redevelopment of John F. Kennedy International Airport. The invitation for a request for information by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is for the design and development of JFK Central, a roughly 14-acre, mixed-use space within the complex. This is the latest step in Governor Cuomo’s $13-billion plan for the redesign of JFK, which includes two new international terminals with modern passenger amenities, user-friendly ground transportation options, and improved roadway infrastructure to accommodate a projected increase of at least 15 million passengers per year.
Illustration of the initial phase of the JFK Buildout
JFK Central will be a centrally located commercial and recreational public space that caters to travelers and employees. Possible uses for the mixed-use space include retail and dining, offices, green space, and cultural offerings and events. The plaza will be built on top of the new ground transportation hub in a highly visible public space, accessible from Terminal 1 and Terminal 4.
Applicants can submit ideas and concepts for either the commercial and public space segments, or both.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
I never thought the development was a technological fatigue. On the other hand, I conclude that it is a way for developers to use creativity, and create a shape based on the imagination designed. (Hello New York YIMBY)
The last thing an airport or the world needs is more retail shopping. Malls are tired and younger generations don’t care. People want to limit their airport experience, not extend it and pay more.
Stop blowing public funds on these vanity projects and do something about air travel emissions. Every available square foot of this airport, accessory buildings and parking areas need to be covered with solar panels. All of the service vehicles and buses need to be electric powered. It’s way past time to get serious about the climate crisis.
Make sure to allocate 2 acres for all the diesel generators to power all those electric vehicles. Now that would be a crisis
In addition to convert as many service vehicles as possible to electric powered as @David (in Bushwick) above notes, it’s time for New Yorkers to DEMAND an upgrade from the 3rd rate, so ridiculous, so embarrassing, soooooo last century, pretend train (aka “AirTrain”) that’s going up in price by a whopping $2.75, or 55%, each way, from $5 to $7.75 for a crappy, makeshift, time consuming, inconvenient, luggage schlepping trek when cities around the world, larger AND even much smaller, than NYC have direct, 1-seat/1-fare REAL TRAINS that whisk passengers to/from airports/city centers in 30-45 minutes (or LESS for London’s Heathrow Express) versus the 1+ hour required for LIRR to AirTrain connections, or 75-90 minutes for subway to AirTrain connections depending on line used.
Ridiculous!
Guess our imperious Governor, who now also fancies himself as a transportation expert, has never been to airports in Hong Kong or Paris/Charles de Gaulle, where sleek trains whisk travelers from stations in their respective central cities in about 30 minutes – right into the passenger terminals!
Wow! What a concept!
Picture, if you will, Paris/Charles de Gaulle, where the TGV that runs right into the lower level of Air France/Delta’s Terminal 2 not just whisks passengers to Paris in about 30 minutes, but is fully integrated with the French domestic railway – and to countries beyond!
Wow!
Or how about Hong Kong, where express trains to Kowloon and Central Hong King arrives mere steps away after exiting the customs and immigration hall AND trains back to the airport arrive upstairs on the departures level, literally a short ramp (NOTE: NOT stairs; NOT “maybe they will/maybe they won’t be working” one direction only escalators; NOT dilapidated, urine soaked/urine stinking elevators) that takes less than a minute (or at most two minutes) to get from the train to the check-in desks/baggage drop for one’s flight. (And that’s before noting that passengers in Central Hong Kong can also check in, check their bags all the way to their destination, too, before boarding Hong Kong’s impressive train to the airport!)
Yet, here in NYC, which fancies itself as the “Capital of the World”, what do we have?
A joke of a train – so ridiculous and embarrassing it would be laughable were it NOT so pathetic and tragic!
And as if having two, vastly inferior versus most world class cities, 3rd rate, prone to breaking down fake trains serving our city (JFK & Newark) isn’t already pathetic enough, what does our imperial “transportation expert” (aka the Guv itching to waste money this mother of all boondoggle and ridiculous/useless vanity projects) now insist upon doing?
Yeah, that’s right, build ANOTHER crappy, useless, totally unwanted, fake (air)train at LaGuardia!
Go figure!
Because doesn’t everyone want to take the “scenic” route via the “Valley of the Ashes” in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, “The Great Gatsby”, that is the swampy, industrial area adjacent to citifield and Flushing Meadows Park where the current, and desolate except on game days/US (Tennis) Open NYCTA bus depot and 7 train storage yard as the Guv envisions as the connecting point for a plan so bad the NY Daily News referred to it an editorial a month or so ago as a “ridiculous trolley”.
Ouch.
But, yep, that’s what we’re still stuck with at JFK unless New Yorkers pull together and DEMAND better, not to mention 21st century worthy, DIRECT, 1-SEAT/1-FARE, REAL RAIL LINKS TO/FROM OUR AIRPORTS⚠️
I mean, SERIOUSLY…these rinky-dinky pretend trains are such a joke – ON US, that is.
Capital of the World? NFW with those ridiculous, amateur hour, 3rd rate (fake) trains!
That much is for sure.
Hey Cuomo. Stop wasting taxpayer money on garbage. Taxes are out of control and this is how you are spending it? Wasteful spending. Worst governor ever. #notmygovernor
JFK airport has to establish the wow experience and
we are far from the “WOW” experience. We have to lead and show we are an example to the nation. JFK airport is the gateway to the world.