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Comment by ssorallen | Hacker News Reader

LaGuardia in NYC requires transferring to a bus for the final connection from the subway to the airport. It’s infuriatingly difficult to get right even after doing the route many times. I’d often call a Lyft/Uber at 10x the price of the subway+bus because the public transit route is that annoying to deal with.

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It’s a little better than it used to be with at least dedicated buses to Woodside and Jackson Heights instead of having to take some random local Queens bus. Still bad though, and Cuomo’s AirTrain route is beyond stupid.

JFK’s story isn’t great, Jamaica and the LIRR aren’t designed for tourists, but it’s much better than LGA.

They're not designed for tourists, and Penn Station has all the ambience of a shoebox, but at least the connection from AirTrain to LIRR is seamless; find out which platform has the first train departing from Penn (always something around) and then take 1 elevator. You'll have to stand near the door with your lugggage though.

The real issue is that tourists just go "oh I should use the subway", partially because the LIRR doesn't obviously say it's going to Manhattan in the Jamaica terminal, partially because people are way more familiar with the subway, and partially because the fare is much lower (~$7 lower during peak hours). That connection is bad.

When I had to go to NYC for work a lot I always flew into Newark and did the train from there. That was nice, worked out nicely, including the flight from Toronto island airport, very smooth. Was a bit shocked the first time I flew LaGuardia at what a pain that was.

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