Could Rikers Island spell relief for busy LaGuardia Airport?

A commission that helped persuade city officials to eventually close New York's violent jail complex on Rikers Island said the 400 acres could be redeveloped as a new runway and terminal extension for LaGuardia.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that the city would develop a plan to shut Rikers over the next decade, replacing a centralized jail plagued by violence and abuse with smaller jails in each of the city's five boroughs.

In its report, the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform said a third runway for LaGuardia could increase flight capacity 40 percent and a new terminal that could be used for an additional 12 million passengers.

The $22 billion cost includes the expense of demolishing the jail, cleaning up polluted soil and the construction of nearly $11 billion in other types of public infrastructure on the island, including a wastewater treatment facility, a solar field and a public greenway.

A second concept floated by the commission would drop the airport expansion but include many of those other infrastructure projects, and cost about $15 billion.