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Thirty-five feet above the Van Wyck Expressway, cruising along at 50 mph, the most unusual feeling settles in: pleasure at the sight of a clogged highway.
Things look different from the window of an AirTrain car.
The postage-stamp yards and tiled roofs glide by while cars sputter bumper to bumper below. Horns and car alarms are inaudible; the only sounds are the train's hisses and hushes.
For a $5 fare, that is what the AirTrain, which opened to a thousand oohs and ahhs yesterday, will offer an estimated 34,000 daily riders.
"We made it, didn't we?" said Charles Gargano, the vice chairman of the Port Authority, which built the $1.9 billion, 8.1-mile loop. "Because today, it is done."
Yet officials at a ceremony marking the opening made clear that they wanted Kennedy even more mass-transit accessible.
"The next step is you're going to be able to get on the train in lower Manhattan, or get on the train in midtown Manhattan, and get off at your terminal," Gov. George Pataki said.
Pataki later dismissed a plan proposed Tuesday by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to use federal money provided to the state after...