Content area
Full Text
By the year 2002, passengers will be able to get to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport with public transportation, thanks to a $1.5 billion light-rail service the Port Authority plans to build.
"Rail access to JFK _ this is a historic moment," Lewis M. Eisenberg, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said at a news conference on Thursday. He acknowledged that the light-rail project has been a fitful effort for three decades.
The train-to-the-plane project moved forward last month when the Federal Aviation Administration approved $1.2 billion in funding, paid for with a $3 departure tax collected at Kennedy and other U.S. airports. The Port Authority, which owns and operates the airport, has been collecting the tax since October 1992 and is ready to begin construction. The rail also will connect Kennedy's nine terminals.
However, the Air Transport Association, a trade group for domestic airlines, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court two weeks ago against the FAA, claiming it...