Newark Airport Airtrain Mess Reveals Lack Of Contingency Planning
NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – A transportation shut down cutting off parking areas at Newark Airport led to chaos Monday night, and employees admitted they did not know what was going on.
A train to shuttle passengers to a parking garage failed, and travelers were told maintenance work was being done during the holiday weekend, reports CBS2's Meg Baker.
"We went downstairs to try to walk, and realized you couldn't walk to Parking Structure 4," said Jim Krummann of Randolph, N.J. "We were told by a man there was a bus, and when we went to talk to the bus people, they said there's no bus going to P4. There's no contingency plan, no backup to this rail failure at Newark."
"The other track takes you to P4, they're working on tonight," said Amy Russel of Middletown, N.Y. "Its a holiday weekend, it makes no sense do it at this hour when flights are delayed."
It not uncommon for breakdowns to happen at Newark Airport. A similar situation happened in July when the Airtrain stalled and people were stuck mid-track for more than an hour...
So does a contingency plan exist? Port Authority officials sidestepped the question at a ground breaking of the new Terminal 1 today.
"Obviously Airtrain has had its problem," said Kevin O'Toole , chairman of the Port Authority. "There's no perfect, easy magical wand we can just wave, but today signifying we are doing things very differently."
Port Authority leaders blame a lack of funding for the breakdown of infrastructure.
"This is being built with the ability to incorporate improvements to the Airtrain." said Port Authority executive director Rick Cotton. "We've inherited decades of under-investment."
