This morning's New York Times reports that the Port Authority will spend $90 million to study the feasibility of rail links between Kennedy and Newark airports, and will commit as much as $1 billion to construct the link itself.
"The Port Authority also agreed to spend $90 million to study the feasibility of rail links between Lower Manhattan and both Kennedy and Newark Liberty International Airports, and to commit up to $500 million for the construction of each project if they are deemed feasible."
Bus and subway links serve JFK; the MTA has bus service to LaGuardia; several private livery services operate to EWR.
The New York Times also ran a brief history of transit disasters in the area's public transit system.
New York City's Worst Transit Disasters
October 16, 2003
By TINA KELLEY
The worst accident on a Staten Island ferry was the
explosion of a boiler on the Westfield II, which killed 125
passengers as the boat departed South Ferry on July 30,
1871.
Yesterday's ferry accident appeared to be one of the
deadliest accidents in the city's transportation system.
In 1918, 97 people were killed in a subway accident, and in
1991, five people were killed and more than 200 injured in
a subway crash at Union Square Station caused by a drunken
motorman.
The motorman admitted that he had been drinking all day and
was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for manslaughter.
Eight months earlier, on Dec. 28, 1990, two people were
killed and 188 were injured in an electrical fire in the
subway tunnel near Clark Street in Brooklyn Heights.
On Aug. 24, 1928, a derailment in Times Square killed 16.
The worst subway disaster in the city's history occurred on
Nov. 1, 1918, when a derailment near the Malbone Street
station in Brooklyn killed 97 people and injured more than
250. The driver was a train dispatcher filling in for
striking motormen.
Until the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, the single
worst disaster in the city's history was the wreck of the
General Slocum, an excursion vessel that caught fire in
1904, killing at least 1,021 people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/16/nyregion/16DISA.html