Last week, the Port Authority did what every other government entity in the tri-state area is doing: request a federal bailout. Yet the reality is that its core business — air travel — may not return for years, casting into doubt the projects it now wants the feds to fund.
The PA is asking the feds for $3 billion, the amount of revenue it expects to lose over the next 24 months on its previously projected $11.8 billion budget.
It depends on air travelers to pay to use its facilities, whether directly or through payments to airlines. But air travel has vanished, with passenger and flight volumes down 85 to 96 percent in late March compared to a year earlier. The authority says traffic will remain “similarly depressed” for a while.
There is an obvious solution here. Close two of the airports, La Guardia and Newark, to passenger traffic, diverting all passenger flights to JFK. Split La Guardia’s cargo between JFK and Newark.
To its credit, the PA has quickly consolidated within airports, closing 100 gates and entire concourses, including two of six terminals at JFK and half of La Guardia’s terminal space.
But there is a lot more it can do — and a lot of money to save. The Port Authority spent $1.8 billion to operate its airports in 2018, a significant feat considering that private airlines, retail stores and restaurants and the federal Transportation Security Administration pay most of the personnel (all retail and most food stores are now closed).
The big culprit: police. The PA Police Department has 165 police officers who earn more than $200,000 a year, reports SeeThroughNY, and nearly 1,400, most of the force, earn more than $100,000. So securing closed La Guardia and Newark facilities with private guards supervised by a skeleton crew of uniformed officers would save a lot of money.
And a shuttered La Guardia would allow construction workers to complete that airport’s new terminal — already paid for — more quickly.
Unlike the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority doesn’t need to maintain most of its operations to keep passengers socially distanced.
Nor does the PA face the MTA’s chicken-and-egg problem for the broader economy. At the MTA, restricting service only compounds its inability to attract, and therefore fund, service. The Port Authority, by contrast, could reopen terminals and then entire airports quickly as airlines resume schedules.
But that could be months, if not years. Consider: 50.5 million of the airports’ 138.8 million passengers in 2018 were traveling internationally. The federal government may not open global borders all summer. And even when it does, it’s unlikely that passengers are going to flock back to their pre-corona record levels.
The Port Authority says closing an airport is “not an option,” as it would need Federal Aviation Administration approval. But why not ask for that OK now, instead of asking for capital-projects money it won’t even need for a while?
Money saved on operations today could go to longer-term investment.
Plus, the authority is going to have to rethink its 10-year, $37 billion capital plan, anyway: $2.9 billion of this money is for a complete redevelopment of JFK, at a cost of $13 billion, the rest paid by the airlines. Another $2.1 billion is for a rail link to La Guardia.
Are airlines going to be in any position to support this investment in the next half-decade?
The reality is that the PA’s entire financial structure — $1.5 billion annual profits at airports, bridges and tunnels, to support massive losses at the PATH system and the bus terminal — is now in greater peril than it was three months ago. Even then, it was shaky, in part because the PA loses $320 million a year at the extravagantly rebuilt World Trade Center.
Yes, the Port Authority may eventually need federal operating aid to keep the PATH trains and the bus terminal running, just as the MTA needs more help. And in a future federal infrastructure bill (likely next year, at the earliest), it’s worth considering funding for a new bus terminal and a better-designed project to bring rail to La Guardia, both projects long in the works.
For now, though, every entity in New York is competing for the same federal dollars, and preserving basic subway and bus service ranks high above building a new JFK.
This piece originally appeared at the New York Post
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post