Port Authority Removes PATH Airport Extension Plan, Redirects Funds to AirTrain

The Port Authority yanked the PATH train extension to Newark Airport from its 2026-2035 capital plan. This pushes the whole thing back at least a decade. The bi-state agency approved the new capital plan on Dec. 18, but the extension that had been part of the previous 2017-2026 plan? Gone.

Why the sudden change? The AirTrain monorail replacement cost ballooned by more than $1 billion, which meant the agency had to pull money from the extension project to cover the difference. Back in the 2017-2026 capital plan, officials pegged the monorail at $2.5 billion, but now it's hitting $3.5 billion, according to Derek Utter, the authority's chief development officer. Ground broke for the AirTrain on Oct. 7.

"The AirTrain cost increase ended up being $3.5 billion and we needed to use that (PATH extension) funding," he said, per NJ.com.

The PATH extension itself has gotten pricier since 2017. Officials originally estimated the project at $1.7 billion, but inflation and construction challenges have driven that number way up.

"Today we would expect that to be much higher due to general inflation and construction projects have outstripped the cost of inflation," Utter said.

Officials put the extension on hold back in 2023 after the pandemic hammered the authority with $3 billion in revenue losses. Travel volumes plummeted at airports, the PATH system, bridges, and tunnels when the pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt in mid-2020.

In 2023, the extension depended on over $700 million in grants that officials hadn't secured yet.

The $160 million Newark Station Access project broke ground in June and will provide a different connection. The station will slash travel time to the airport from 40 minutes down to nine minutes for residents in Newark's South Ward neighborhoods. Officials expect to finish the project in the fourth quarter of 2026, and it should serve an estimated 400,000 people a year.

"The Newark Station Access has been designed to deliver many of the same community benefits that Newark Airport PATH would achieve," Utter said.

The extension would have provided a one-seat ride from lower Manhattan to the airport on PATH's Newark-World Trade Center line. Newark officials had pushed hard for the extension to help airport workers who lived in Newark and faced brutal bus commutes.

Jack McKee, an organizer for Hudson County Complete Streets, urged the authority to keep the extension alive on Dec. 18. "I ask that you prioritize the airport extension, even if there is no ground breaking, so that at the next capital plan there will be another place for it," McKee said.