ELIZABETH — During her lunch break as a Terminal C concessionaire, New Jersey state Sen. Renee Burgess remembered watching construction crews erect beams for the guiderail of the original monorail system that opened at Newark Liberty International Airport in 1996.

“Everybody was talking about this big project,” Burgess recalled on a sunny October morning as the replacement of that now-outdated system was being announced, people-mover cars lurking in the background of the P3 airport lot as they crawled along the rusting elevated guiderail reminiscent of an old roller coaster.

“Once it started coming together, you started seeing them put the tracks in piece-by-piece — that was amazing.”

Before the monorail connected the airport’s three terminals, parking lots and other transit lines, airp

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