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CORRECTION: Costs for the AirTrain project are $400 million above what the Port Authority anticipated in 1999. A story Thursday misstated the amount. Pg. A02 Q 9/9/03
Behind schedule, over budget and now facing a $200 million lawsuit from the family of a fatally injured worker, the AirTrain is scheduled to begin transporting passengers to Kennedy Airport by the end of the year.
Or so officials hope.
"The original plan was to open sometime this year and now we're hoping that we will be open by the end of this year," Port Authority vice chairman Charles Gargano said yesterday during a tour of the long-awaited rail link. "We don't think that's been really all that critical, the time element."
Construction along the 8.1-mile system - which links NYC Transit and Long Island Rail Road passengers to AirTrain terminals in Jamaica and Howard Beach - is virtually complete.
But problems linger. Kelvin DeBourgh's death Sept. 27 while test- piloting the system, combined with the delaying...