U.S. won't auction NY airport slots to ease delays
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said on Wednesday he wants to rescind plans for slot auctions at New York area airports, a controversial Bush era plan to reduce flight delays that prompted lawsuits.
"We're still serious about tackling aviation congestion in the New York region," LaHood said at a breakfast for the Association for a Better New York. He added he will discuss how to solve the problem over the summer with "airline, airport and consumer stakeholders."
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs local airports, had sued to block the Bush administration's plan to auction the slots to the highest bidders, saying this would drive ticket prices higher but not improve flight delays. A U.S. Court of Appeals stayed the plan in December.
Travelers flying in and out of New York and New Jersey's three main metropolitan airports often endure delays of 130 minutes or more and the backups spread throughout the country, according to a business group's study released in February.
LaHood, saying his "holistic" transportation strategy encompassed everything from ferries to high-speed rail, gave New Jersey's new Hudson River tunnel another green light.
The billion-dollar commuter rail link under the Hudson, the area's first new river crossing in decades, should be cleared to "move ahead with major construction activity in advance of federal funds," LaHood said.
Bidding on major contracts for the Hudson River tunnel, which will link New Jersey's commuter railroad with Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station, should start soon, LaHood said. New Jersey commuters often endure lengthy delays because the train tunnels are so overcrowded. The new tunnel will more than double the number of trains per hour to 48 from 23.
PUT HOUSING NEAR MASS TRANSIT
LaHood displayed less familiarity with another local billion-dollar project, the new mass transit hub for the World Trade Center, whose butterfly wing design by Spain's Santiago Calatrava has been clipped as its costs skyrocket.
"That hasn't been on my radar," LaHood told reporters.
By coordinating "resources" with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shawn Donovan, the federal transportation agency can help the government build more affordable housing near mass transit links, LaHood said.
This will let residents of cities like New York or Chicago "simply walk out of their door and not have to get into an automobile," but instead ride bikes, light rail, or buses, the transportation secretary explained.
Noting both Chicago and New York City failed to take advantage of hundreds of millions of dollars the Bush administration approved for fighting gridlock, LaHood said "that cash is still sitting around," but offered no further details about the program's future.
Last year, New York's legislature spurned Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to force motorists out of their cars and onto buses or subways with new fees for driving into midtown Manhattan on weekdays. In Chicago, a plan to hike fees and taxes for parking garages was never enacted, partly due to criticism from business groups.
LaHood also said the Obama administration will give Congress its plan "very soon" for solving a trade fight with Mexico, which imposed $2.4 billion of duties on U.S. exports after President Barack Obama canceled a Bush administration experiment with letting the country's trucks be driven in the United States.
Explaining most of Congress' concerns focused on safety, LaHood told reporters after the breakfast: "We really tried to strengthen the program by developing some metrics and standards for safety, and we hope that will satisfy them."
(Reporting by Joan Gralla; Editing by Jan Paschal)
