A June 1, 2006 aviation symposium organized by the NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management focused attention on critically important issues of airport capacity and access in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan region. Three hundred transportation planners and executives heard a keynote speech delivered by New York City Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding Daniel L. Doctoroff and follow-up discussions by distinguished panelists. Deputy Mayor Doctoroff told the gathering that traffic-clogged access to Kennedy and other airports represents a serious threat to the ongoing expansion of the local economy, and announced he would co-chair, with Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director Kenneth J. Ringler, a new task force to find solutions to the "ever-looming possibility of mind-numbing bottlenecks." NYU Wagner Professor Mitchell Moss, who was among the panelists, underscored the economic importance of the airports and the need for bold solutions, noting at one point that double-decking the Van Wyck Expressway, as some far-seeing experts proposed three decades ago, would have made a big difference in easing current highway access problems.
Click here for the Summary Report.
Read articles related to the conference by The New York Times, The Times Herald-Record, and The Westchester Journal News.
