Port Authority eyes new bus terminal location
- A new Port Authority Bus Terminal is expected to cost between $7.5 billion and $10.5 billion.
- Bus ridership into New York is expected to double by 2040, with nearly 337,000 daily passengers.
- About 232,000 riders came through the terminal every day in 2011.
NEW YORK - From the street, the Port Authority Bus Terminal looks like any other bustling hub in a city full of them.
But while most pedestrians — eyes glued ahead or to the sidewalk — walk past without giving it a second glance, the 65-year-old building is bursting at the seams with 232,000 people and hundreds of cramped buses creeping their way in and out daily, in an eternal traffic delay that stretches from Manhattan to Weehawken.
“I learned in public office that the squeakiest wheel gets the most grease. (The terminal) gets overshadowed by whoever’s raising the loudest voice,” said New Jersey state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, a leading proponent of plans for a new terminal. “I represent an area that has no rail travel. Other than cars, buses are the only way to get to the city. It’s the only way in and the only way home.”
The future sits a block to the west, where the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to construct a brand-new bus terminal, a $10.5 billion behemoth stretching from Ninth Avenue to Eleventh Avenue that would nearly border the Hudson River. The simple concept of building a new terminal was approved in October, though decisions on even the most basic details — such as size and location — won’t occur until next year.
The existing relic has become a lightning rod for politicians and transportation experts who urge a new facility be built. They cite growing ridership and the need to expand Hudson River crossings, as the rail tunnels continue to deteriorate.
According to Port Authority statistics, about 232,000 riders arrived at or departed from the Port Authority Bus Terminal each day in 2011. During its peak afternoon rush, about 28,000 passengers an hour vie to get on 770 buses.
And the crowds are projected to increase, surpassing 270,000 riders by 2020, a 16 percent increase, before skyrocketing to 337,000 daily passengers by 2040 — nearly double today’s ridership.
A new bus terminal needs to be able to handle not just today’s riders but their grandchildren.
“It’s a byproduct of the city. It has to be like that,” Marlboro resident David Yang said, shortly before catching a bus to the terminal. “You need a place where you can converge. Could it be better? Yes, of course. But I’ve never seen a good bus terminal anywhere in the world.”
For many commuters, the Port Authority Bus Terminal is just a routine. Heavy crowds are commonplace, something that comes with the territory.
What commuters pay attention to is the length of their commute, a factor that can be annoyingly lengthened by the sheer congestion of buses entering and exiting the terminal and nearly doubled by the heavy volume of vehicles at the Lincoln Tunnel.
Buses pull into a designated gate, drop off or pick up passengers, then back up into oncoming traffic in order to exit. This process is repeated over and over again throughout the day, leading to the bus backups at the Lincoln Tunnel.
“There has to be a different way of loading and unloading the passengers,” said Stacy Schwartz, a commuter from Marlboro. “In the morning, you could be at the terminal and it will still take you 20 minutes to get off the bus.”
On one Monday morning, it took commuters exactly two hours to get from the Union Hill park-and-ride station in Marlboro to the terminal at a time when the peak rush was tapering off.
The Port Authority has recognized the need for streamlined bus operations but said the current terminal wasn’t built for “taller, longer, heavier modern buses,” according to authority research. As a result, there’s simply not enough space for them to park, stage and circulate.
For Charles Drago, owner of the 100-year-old Drago Shoe Repair store at the terminal, the commute takes more than an hour from his home in Guttenberg, just five miles away.
“Every day, it’s 45 minutes at the tunnel,” Drago said. “Even at 7 a.m., it’s 40 minutes.”
Port Authority commissioners in October voted to formally approve the project, signing off on the start of a yearlong design competition that will end in September 2016.
According to estimates by a working group of commissioners, the new terminal is expected to cost anywhere from $7.5 billion to $10.5 billion. The authority’s favored designs — which include the “one block west” concept — are expected to cost about $10 billion.
“Even if we followed the schedule, this is a five- to 10-year project to get this done,” Port Authority Vice Chairman Scott Rechler said in October. “We have to be thoughtful in terms of our customers, maybe inject money into the existing terminal in the interim period to make customer service satisfactory.”
But other than a simple “yes” vote, nothing has been decided on the location, size or amenities of the new terminal, Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye said in October.
When bidding on the contract, designers have been asked to consider alternate sites if they have a better idea. The board won’t approve a particular design or contract until September 2016.
“This is an unbelievably complicated project being done at the crossroads of the world, on the site of some of the most expensive and important real estate in the world,” Foye said. “It’s the largest infrastructure project that will be done to date by the Port Authority and one of the largest infrastructure projects ever done in the Untied States. It takes time, and I think the time has served the project well.”
The $10.5 billion price tag is more than the cost of the new transportation hub at the World Trade Center, the two phases of the Second Avenue Subway project. Nationally, it’s nearly double the cost of building a new Washington Metro Dulles Corridor, subway expansion in Los Angeles and construction of the Honolulu Transit Center.
Drago, who has owned his business for 40 years, isn’t holding his breath for any major changes at the new terminal.
When it comes to transportation improvements, he believes the bus terminal — and the commuters who use it — are at the bottom of the barrel in the eyes of officials.
“Airports are up here. Then, you have the train stations,” Drago said, moving his hand down like a thermometer. “Then, you have the bus terminals. It ain’t going to change.
“New is always nice,” he said. “But new gets old.”