NYC via EWR FTW!

Being from the New York area, I’ve always been bothered by how terrible the mass transit options are to LGA and JFK airports. I have not yet tried AirTrain to JFK (from Jamaica Station in Queens), which should be a major improvement. But getting to LaGuardia by transit requires a bus connection; I always worry about a bus leg heading to the airport, since timing is strongly affected by traffic. You can see the relative locations of the three major NYC airports below.


Work sent me to do a job in Newark, NJ, so I’m taking a long weekend here in the city and to visit my folks on Long Island—an update will come later. I dropped off my coworker at Newark airport (EWR), and then needed to make my way into the city.

I have to say that I was pretty impressed by the current rail connection from EWR to NYC. There is a free monorail/tramway connecting the terminals to parking, and then to the Amtrak/New Jersey Transit station. Then you can hop on NJ Transit ($15), getting into Penn Station in about 20 minutes. Two seat ride--major win.

Also, I was fascinated by the monorail track, being the infrastructure geek that I am. There are two tracks (inbound & outbound), but they need to switch the trains at terminal connection to the train station. The rail switch was pretty puzzling to me at first—one of those big pieces spins horizontally or something?


Later, while I was waiting for the NJ transit train, I looked over and saw how it works. The whole section of track rotates upside-down (along the axis of the tracks) to change connections. Whoah. I took some photos from the side, but the more informative version is the animated GIF on this page from the Monorail Society--scroll down to "Rotary Switch."