JFK, LaGuardia and Newark: How to Actually Get into Manhattan

The trains work, and they are a tenth of the price. All three airports connect to Manhattan on public transit for between $3 and $18, and at rush hour the train will usually beat the cab anyway, because the traffic that makes a taxi slow does not touch a train.

Here is each airport, the option we would actually take, and what it costs.

The short version

	Best option	Cost	Time to midtown
JFK	AirTrain to the E at Jamaica	$11.75	About 1 hr 15
LaGuardia	Free Q70 bus to the subway	$3	About 45 min
Newark	NJ Transit to Penn Station	$17.25	About 30 min on the train

Taxis and rideshare from any of them land somewhere between $70 and $130 all in, and take as long as the traffic decides.

JFK

Take the AirTrain. It runs from every terminal, all night, and you pay when you leave it rather than when you get on: $8.75, tapped out with the same phone or card you will use for everything else here.

Two places to get off, and the choice matters:

• Jamaica puts you on the E train, which is the one you want for midtown. It also puts you on the LIRR, which is faster again and costs more, and drops you at Grand Central or Penn Station.
• Howard Beach puts you on the A train, which is right for downtown and Brooklyn, and slow if you are going to midtown.

Either way the subway is $3 on top, so the whole thing is $11.75. Our subway guide covers the tapping, the fare cap and the rest of it.

If you take a cab, the fare between JFK and Manhattan is a flat $70 in either direction. That is the number on the sign, not the number on your card: add tolls, the state and congestion surcharges, another $5 if you travel between 4pm and 8pm on a weekday, and a tip, and $90 to $115 is the honest range. Join the official taxi stand outside arrivals, following the signs rather than anybody’s directions. More on that below, because it is the part of arriving here we would most like to apologize for.

LaGuardia

There is no train to LaGuardia. The new terminals are beautiful and the rail link does not exist, which is the single most New York fact in this guide.

The Q70 LaGuardia Link is free, runs from Terminals B and C, and takes about ten minutes to 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, where you get the E, F, M, R or 7. Total cost of getting from the plane to midtown: $3, all of it the subway fare.

The M60 bus is the other one, and it goes to Harlem and the Upper West Side, crossing 125th Street. If that is where you are staying it is the better bus and it costs the same $3.

A cab from LaGuardia is metered, not flat, plus the usual surcharges. It is the shortest drive of the three airports, and it is also the one most likely to be sitting still on the Grand Central Parkway.

While you are in Jackson Heights waiting for that train, you are standing in one of the best eating neighborhoods in New York. If you have an hour, spend it there rather than at the gate.

Newark

NJ Transit to New York Penn Station, $17.25 one way. Buy the ticket to New York Penn Station and the AirTrain fee is already inside it, so the gate opens with the same ticket and there is nothing else to buy. The train takes about half an hour.

One thing to check before you go: AirTrain Newark is being rebuilt, and service is replaced by free shuttle buses during the construction windows. The buses work and they are signposted, but they add time, so give yourself a cushion going out to the airport rather than discovering it with a boarding time.

Newark is in New Jersey, which sounds like a problem and mostly is not. If you are staying anywhere near Penn Station it is the easiest arrival of the three.

The bit we are sorry about

You will clear customs, walk out into arrivals, and somebody will ask if you need a ride. Then somebody else. At JFK it can happen four or five times before you reach the door.

We are genuinely embarrassed by this. It is the first thing a lot of people ever experience of New York, and it is a bad advert for a city that is far better than its arrivals hall. So, plainly: none of those people are your ride. Not one. Every legitimate way out of this airport is either on your phone or at a marked stand outside, and none of them need to find you first.

Keep walking and do not answer. Not a word, not a head shake, no eye contact, no “no thank you”. Any response is an opening, and silence ends it faster than politeness does. It feels rude the first time. It is not. Everyone who lives here does exactly this.

If you called an Uber or a Lyft, follow your phone. Your app tells you which door, which level and which car, with a plate number. A stranger telling you your driver is waiting somewhere else does not have your booking and does not work for the app. Follow the screen, not the person.

If you want a yellow cab, follow the signs to the official taxi stand. It is outside, it is marked, a dispatcher runs it, and joining it is free. That queue always moves faster than it looks.

Our honest preference, if you are not taking the train: use Uber or Lyft. Not because the cabs are bad, but because the whole thing is transparent. You see the price before you agree to it, you see the driver and the plate before you get in, the route is on your screen, and there is a record of all of it afterwards. That removes every part of this where a visitor can be taken advantage of, and after a long flight that is worth something even when the flat-fare cab works out slightly cheaper.

Same instinct as the Staten Island Ferry scam: in New York, the real thing is the one nobody is selling you.

Luggage, honestly

The subway is stairs. Some stations have elevators and plenty do not, and at Jamaica you will be carrying whatever you brought up at least one flight. With one bag each, this is nothing. With two large cases, a pushchair and a tired child, take the cab and consider it money well spent.

The LIRR from Jamaica is the compromise worth knowing about: more expensive than the subway, far cheaper than a taxi, fewer stairs, and you sit down.

Landing late

The subway runs 24 hours, every day, and so does the JFK AirTrain. A 1am arrival at JFK can still be done on the train, and the E runs all night.

Newark is the exception: NJ Transit thins out overnight, so a late landing there is the one case where we would book the cab in advance and not think about it again.

Questions about anything in this guide? Reach MUSEENYC at museenyc.art@gmail.com or @museenyc on Instagram.

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