LaGuardia Airport transit plan to improve bus service to be voted on Thursday by Port Authority board

Traveling by bus from western Queens to LaGuardia Airport will be quicker and less congested, state officials said Tuesday, as they unveiled a $160 million transit plan for the area.

The proposal, which comes before the Port Authority Board of Commissioners for a vote on Thursday, calls for more frequent and consistent service on the Q70 LaGuardia Link bus route, which connects the airport with the Jackson Heights subway, the Long Island Rail Road at the Woodside LIRR station and the Woodside subway station, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

“This new funding will advance several transportation projects, provide new bus lanes, reduce congestion and overcrowding, and install new traffic lights to prioritize buses into the airport,” Hochul said in a statement.

The proposal comes after Hochul in 2023 scrapped a plan, introduced by her predecessor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to build an AirTrain from Willets Points to LaGuardia after the project’s cost ballooned to $2.4 billion.

“With this new project, public transit to LaGuardia Airport will be fast, frequent and reliable to boot,” said Danny Pearlstein, spokesman and policy director for the Riders Alliance, which advocates for city transit issues. “Stopping the backwards boondoggle LGA AirTrain was a bold reckoning with reality.”

As LaGuardia was undergoing a massive $8 billion renovation project, Hochul in late-2021 impaneled a three-member team of transportation experts to explore ways to improve bus service to the airport. 

The panel included Mike Brown, former commissioner of transport for the city of London and the ex-managing director of Heathrow Airport; Janette Sadik-Khan, former commissioner of City Department of Transportation and Phillip Washington, who previously ran Denver International Airport and the Los Angeles Metro.

The group recommended adding a bus lane to the shoulder of the northbound Brooklyn-Queens Expressway between Northern and Astoria boulevards; installing traffic signals that prioritize the Q70 bus on Roosevelt Ave and Broadway and increasing bus frequency from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., starting June 1. Three years ago, Hochul made the LaGuardia Link Q70 free for passengers.

“This proposal will fund the development of the faster, more reliable mass transit link the expert panel envisioned and passengers traveling to our world class LaGuardia Airport deserve,” Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton said in a statement. “The installation of bus-only lanes on the expressway portions of the route will create a bus link that will be a fast trip to the airport with the bus able to avoid congestion.”

The panel also recommended adding a specially designated bus pickup and drop-off area near LaGuardia’s Terminal C and installing improved signage and lighting at the Jackson Heights and Woodside subway and LIRR stations.

“These common sense, road-tested bus improvements are going to make the ride to and from Queens a lot smoother and faster for tens of thousands of passengers,” MTA Chairman and Chief Executive Janno Lieber said in a statement.