The goal of providing rail access to New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) from Manhattan is finally coming to fruition. By the end of 2002, passengers will be able to connect from the NYC subway system at Howard Beach via a light rail system (LRS) to one of six LRS stations serving JFK’s air terminals (Figure 1). The new system, called JFK AirTrain, will also provide a more direct route to midtown Manhattan’s 34th Street Penn Station by 2003, when the connection at Jamaica Station in Queens is completed. With the connection at Jamaica Station, the total trip time from Manhattan to JFK will be approximately 30-40 minutes, a significant improvement over the current 1-2 hour trip via the often congested roadways.

Figure 1: Links to New York City's Subway System via Howad Beach and the Future Connection at Jamaica Station

Figure 2: The Ten Station Stops of JFK AirTrain

In addition to improving access to the airport from the outside, the $1.9 billion JFK AirTrain project will improve access for passengers traveling between terminals and airport facilities. It is one of four critical factors to capacity planning at JFK. The others, airport runway, terminal gate and roadway frontage capacity, are being addressed by a more than $8 billion capital improvement program that the airport’s operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) is involved with in conjunction with some of the major airlines.

JFK handled more than 32 million passengers, 350,000 flights and 2 million tons of cargo in 2000. The events of September 11, 2001 impacted air travel, especially international air travel, but PANYNJ expects the number of passengers to return to 2000 levels in 1-2 years. Pre September 11 projections anticipated 45 million passengers annually by 2013.

The JFK AirTrain

The 13-km (8-mile) -long system has 10 passenger stations (Figure 2). Six are located in the central terminal area with direct access being provided to each airline terminal. In addition, there are stations serving the car rental area, long-term parking lot facilities, Jamaica/LIRR train station for connections to the Long Island Rail Road and New York City Transit systems, and the Howard Beach Station for a direct connection to the NYCT station at Howard Beach.

The AirTrain system provides three distinct services:

• Jamaica Station. During peaks hours, trains will leave Jamaica Station every four minutes. These trains will stop at the car rental station on their way to serving the six stations in the central terminal area and return to Jamaica Station within 24 minutes.
• Howard Beach. During peak hours, trains will depart every four minutes and will serve the long-term parking lot and the car rental area on their way to serving the six stations in the central terminal area.
• Circular Service. A circulator service on separate track within the airport’s central terminal area will provide inter-terminal movements every two minutes. The trains will be fully automated and monitored from a central control facility.

It is estimated that an average of 34,000 riders will use the system daily.

Project Implementation

PANYNJ decided to use a combination of conventional design-bid-build and design-build-operate-maintain (DBOM) approaches to implement the JFK AirTrain project. Through a “best value” selection process, a consortium named Air Rail Transit Consortium (ARTC) was selected to perform most of the work. ARTC’s responsibilities included construction of 100 percent designed project elements, performing design-build services and, after acceptance of the system by PANYNJ, operating and maintaining the system for at least five years with the potential for two five-year extensions.

In addition, PANYNJ prepared contract documents for a major renovation of the Long Island Rail Road and New York City Transit stations at Jamaica. This portion of the project was designed and bid in a conventional manner.

PB’s Role

Aircraft Accommodated by New Tunnel

Figure 3: Tunnel Excavation

PB provided conceptual engineering and prepared the Request for Qualifications and Request for Proposal documents for the DBOM contract. We also assisted PANYNJ in managing the procurement process and supported the Federal Aviation Administration’s environmental impact statement process.

We are providing general engineering consultant services for the JFK AirTrain, including a wide range of planning, design, environmental analysis, and procurement activities. A special feature of the project is that joint PANYNJ/PB staffs are located in a project office, and we are serving as an extension of PANYNJ staff to manage the project.

Early Action Program: Twin-Cell Tunnel

As part of an early action program, we prepared final design contract documents for a 580-m (1,900-linear-foot) twin-cell tunnel that is located under two active taxiways and was designed to carry light rail transit in one cell, a 10-m (33-foot) -wide tunnel, and airport service vehicles in the other, a 12-m (38-foot) wide tunnel. These contract documents were included in the work required by the DBOM contractor. In anticipation of future new large aircraft, the tunnel was designed to support several large aircraft on the runway above. These aircraft are listed in the box at left.

The tunnel was constructed by the cut-and-cover method (Figure 3). Only one taxiway was taken out of service at any given time. In order to restrict taxiway outages during summer peak periods, the contract required temporary decking beams spanning the excavation and supported on piles.

Contaminated groundwater plumes near the site required creation of a “bathtub” to limit the movement of the plumes. A system of horizontal and vertical groundwater cut-offs was designed to address these concerns. (Vertical cut off was achieved by using interlocking steel sheet piling and horizontal cut-off was achieved by chemical grouting.) Detailed specifications for an extensive monitoring and testing program were also prepared to ensure the performance of the groundwater control system.

Design Review

A joint PB and PANYNJ facilities review team was setup to review design submittals for the design-build project. Due to the large scope of the project (more than 263 separate design packages) and the fast track nature of design-build construction, it was essential that design reviews focus on major items.

To accomplish this, we setup a design review procedure with clear instructions to the reviewers as to what they shouldfocus on. A senior engineer with extensive design experience led each discipline team. Frequent on-board meetings were held between the reviewers and designers to ensure timely resolution of comments. To date, more than 1,500 submittals have been reviewed by the facilities review team, including preliminary and pre-final designs packages and other deliverables required by contract.

Jamaica Terminal

The LRS connection to Jamaica Terminal is a major project by itself, with a construction cost of more than $300 million. To handle the extensive design and interagency coordination for this work, The PANYNJ setup a separate and dedicated staff that included PB members. We provided both senior level project managers as well as experienced construction management staff to augment the PANYNJ team. This work has proceeded through the design and bid stages and is well into the construction phase.

Conclusion

The JFK AirTrain is a major project with all the complexities that one would expect for a construction project that is being implemented in a busy airport and urban environment. The fact that PB could provide key staff and skills to assist in resolving a wide range of problems is a tribute to the PB offices in the New York and New Jersey areas.