By CGTN’s Karina Huber
New York City’s airports are the most congested in America - and that is hurting the city’s economy.
Anyone who has flown in or out of New York City cannot help but notice how outdated its airports are. Overall, the city faces many infrastructure challenges.
Traffic often moves at a crawl and that’s bound to get worse. New York City’s population is expected to hit nine million by 2040, an increase of 500,000 from current levels. That will put extra pressure on New York’s aging infrastructure.
Commuters wait to ride New York City Subway. /VCG Photo
“It’s embarrassing. You go to a developing country, you go to China, you go to some other parts of the world and you say ‘Wow the airport is fantastic!’ You say: ‘I wish I had that in New York!’”, Jean-Paul Rodrigue, professor of global studies and geography at Hofstra University, said.
LaGuardia recently won the distinction of being the United States’ worst airport, because of its delays. That costs the economy big bucks.
The Partnership for New York City, an organization representing the city's business community, estimates delays at its airports translate into billions of dollars in losses every year.
“Of the 32 billion US dollars that our board approved - a capital plan over the next 10 years - there’s about 12 billion dollars that’s going to go into aviation. That’s a sign of how important they are one and two how starved they are for investment capital,” Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said.
A bird view of skyscrapers in New York. /VCG Photo
The organization is responsible for running many of the city’s bridges and tunnels as well as its three major airports.
LaGuardia is getting four billion US dollars for a re-haul from the Port Authority and the governor recently announced a 10 billion US dollar plan to transform JFK Airport. But New Yorkers may still have a bumpy road ahead.
“You cannot close a bridge. You cannot close an airport. So how do you upgrade this while maintaining a level of traffic -- that’s an excessively big challenge for New York,” Rodrigue said.
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