In Brief:
- MacArthur Airport expanded to 18 nonstop routes across six airlines
- Proposed Amtrak service would link Ronkonkoma directly to major East Coast cities
- Connectivity would benefit LI’s biotech and industrial corridors
- Local officials see the airport as a future regional transportation hub and economic driver
Airports play an important role in the regions they serve. They spur economic development through job creation, facilitating and attracting tourists, and establishing and encouraging business links between their home territory and other geographic areas. Long Island MacArthur Airport is no different as it continues to spread its wings, seeking to untap its economic development potential and that of the surrounding business community.
MacArthur Airport has grown from six nonstop destinations serviced by two airlines to six carriers that fly 18 nonstop routes, including new routes to Lakeland and Sarasota, Fla.; Wilmington and Concord/Charlotte, N.C.; and Boston. While increasing travel options is important to airport growth, these flights take Long Islanders and their discretionary spending and economic activity to these locales. The challenge, therefore, is to fulfill MacArthur Airport’s economic potential by creating Long Island economic activity attractive enough to the businesses at these locales that they will want to come to Long Island to conduct business.
Additionally, the growth at MacArthur has received attention from Amtrak, which has proposed a one-seat ride from Ronkonkoma, Hicksville, or Jamaica to Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., thus avoiding the inconvenience of taking the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to Penn Station and then transferring to Amtrak heading to Washington, D.C. Amtrak, as part of its Northeast Regional Service, would run three trains onto and off Long Island, for six daily trips. Makes financial sense for Amtrak, since the infrastructure of tracks and stations are already in place, all owned and maintained by the LIRR. With Amtrak getting a new fleet of trains within the next five years, there is time to plan for a smooth transition.
The proposed connectivity potential with Amtrak—combined with the existing connectivity between MacArthur Airport and the LIRR—could increase local business utilization of MacArthur Airport by better-serving the scientists and researchers in the high-tech and biotech corridor extending from Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, The Feinstein Institute and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, as well as the major employment centers at the Hauppauge Industrial Park and the Route 110 Corridor. However, there are issues.
The rub is that Amtrak will need the cooperation of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the LIRR, and the relations between the two are a bit strained. Amtrak, which owns Penn Station, closed one of four East River Tunnel for repairs, much to the objection of the LIRR whose riders primarily travel to Penn Station. Nonetheless, the economic development potential to be gained from the Amtrak proposal has not gone unnoticed
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, understanding that travelers bring economic activity to destinations they visit, has said that the Amtrak proposal is a good idea and would put Ronkonkoma “on the map.” He envisions that Amtrak would provide new rail connections for Long Island, and go a long way to making Suffolk County a travelers’ destination.
The convenience and location of MacArthur Airport provides an untapped competitive advantage over JFK and LaGuardia airports. This opportunity for more business utilization along with Amtrack’s proposal, would advance the goal of transforming Ronkonkoma and MacArthur Airport into a regional transportation hub. This would generate new and reliable air travelers, which would attract more airlines with more one-stop destinations, making MacArthur Airport a major economic engine for Suffolk County.
Martin Cantor is director of the Long Island Center for Socio-Economic Policy and former Suffolk County economic development commissioner. He can be reached at [email protected].
