NYC plans to upgrade infrastructure but faces an uphill road

Global Business

NYC plans to upgrade infrastructure but faces an uphill road

New York City’s airports are the most congested in America and that’s hurting the city’s economy.

CGTN’s Karina Huber reports.

Anyone who has flown in or out of New York City can’t help but notice how outdated its airports are. Overall, the city faces many infrastructure challenges.

Traffic often moves at a crawl and that’s bound to get worse. New York City’s population is expected to hit 9 million by 2040, an increase of 500,000 from current levels. That’ll put extra pressure on New York’s aging infrastructure.

“It’s embarrassing. You go to a developing country – you go to China, you go to some other parts of the world and you say ‘Wow the airport is fantastic!’ You say: ‘I wish I had that in New York!’”, Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor of global studies and geography at Hofstra University said.

LaGuardia recently won the distinction of being the United States’ worst airport, because of its delays. That costs the economy big bucks.

The partnership for New York City estimates delays at its airports translates into billions of dollars in losses every year.

“Of the $32 billion that our board approved – a capital plan over the next 10 years – there’s about $12 billion that’s going to go into aviation. That’s a sign of how important they are one and two how starved they are for investment capital,” Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said. It’s responsible for running many of the city’s bridges and tunnels as well as its three major airports.

LaGuardia is getting $4 billion for a re-haul from the Port Authority and the governor recently announced a $10 billion plan to transform JFK Airport. But New Yorkers may still have a bumpy road ahead.

“You cannot close a bridge. You cannot close an airport. So how do you upgrade this while maintaining a level of traffic and that’s an excessively big challenge for New York,” Rodrigue said.


Patrick Foye talks about NYC’s infrastructure plans and how the city will fund it

CGTN’s Karina Huber spoke to Patrick Foye, Executive Director of Port Authority of NY and NJ about New York City’s infrastructure problems and how the city is trying to upgrade them.