Planning for an AirTrain to LaGuardia Airport got another $55 million Thursday from the Port Authority, in a unanimous vote with no questions asked.
Agency board members approved the money for the Gov. Cuomo-backed project, supplementing the $20 million already allocated, to put an AirTrain between Mets-Willets Point and the airport.
The board heard a brief presentation about the next phase of the planning, but no members had any questions on it before voting.
The money for the new transportation — a modern necessity for supporters of Cuomo’s transformation of the city’s airports, and a potential boondoggle to its critics — would cover technical planning, design work and developing an environmental-impact report.
“LaGuardia is the only major airport on the East Coast without a rail connection,” Cuomo spokesman James Allen said. “This will be a game-changer and we’re excited it’s moving forward.”
Aside from the $75 million for planning, the AirTrain project has no cost estimate or completed study. Past estimates have been pegged at $1 billion.
“The point of phase two planning is to finish the analysis and to consider the pros and cons of the alignment and to get into all the issues that we’re raising,” said Rick Cotton, the Port Authority director and a former Cuomo aide. “We’re working on that. All points of view will be considered, that’s the point of the planning process.”
Project supporters at the Port Authority say the airport needs a rail connection and that it would bring people from Midtown, Manhattan, on the No. 7 train, past LaGuardia to Mets-Willets Point, where flyers could catch an AirTrain to the airport — all in under a half hour.
Port Chairman Kevin O’Toole of New Jersey said the vote was not taken “willy-nilly” but after a lot of internal, private discussions.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm, a … high-degree of concern that this has to get done right,” O’Toole said. “To think that there isn’t an AirTrain or direct rail or a supplemental transportation system there, and the only one in the country, is frankly embarrassing.”
