LaGuardia AirTrain Now Expected To Cost $2 Billion, Officials Say

EAST ELMHURST, QUEENS — The estimated cost of building an AirTrain to LaGuardia Airport has climbed to $2 billion — quadruple the original estimates put forth in 2015.

The controversial new monorail is now expected to cost $2.05 billion, Port Authority officials said this week.

Recent estimates had pegged the cost at $1.5 billion, already triple the $450 million Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the AirTrain would cost when he proposed the idea in 2015.

Construction would begin in 2020, and the AirTrain would start running in 2022, according to Cuomo's office.

The project's rapidly rising cost isn't the only source of criticism. Some say the Port Authority should consider alternative routes or transportation methods and argue that the AirTrain wouldn't save LaGuardia travelers any time.

"Compared to existing transit services, most riders using the AirTrain would spend more time traveling to LaGuardia than they do now," transit expert Yonah Freemark wrote in 2015, when Cuomo announced the plan.

Officials insist the AirTrain is a necessary addition to the city's transit infrastructure.

"Today, LaGuardia Airport is the only major airport on the east coast without a mass transit rail link," Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton previously said.

"It is simply indefensible not to be planning to improve access to LGA at a time of severe increases in road congestion, travel times and the impacts of climate change."

The New York City metro area's two other major airports, Newark and J.F.K., each have AirTrain equivalents.