The Port Authority has eliminated several alternatives, including the construction of the new terminal under the old one, under the Jacob K. Javits Conference Center or in New Jersey.
“They came up with a much better plan than they originally had,” said Thomas K. Wright, chief executive of the Regional Plan Association, an influential planning group.
Wright said replacing the terminal is a necessity, no matter how much it costs, because of the integral role it plays in the city’s daily commute. According to the port authority, more than 250,000 people went through it on a typical weekday before the pandemic. Since March, traffic has dropped by more than 65 percent.
“New York ceases to exist without its commitments to the surrounding communities and workforce,” Wright said. “Without it, the city is going into a period of decline.”
The bus terminal, a brick aisle located at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, has long exceeded its capacity – when it opened in the late 1950s, it was expected to carry 60,000 passengers a day. Although the station was rehabilitated in the early 1980s, it could not accommodate the commuters of commuters, mostly from New Jersey, who normally use it.
The port authority wants the new terminal to be able to handle 1,000 buses during rush hour in the evening, up from about 850 today. According to the plan, it is also designed to provide charging equipment for electric buses.
Buses may be less romantic than trains, but other major cities have invested in their bus transportation systems to ease traffic and pollution by cars. More than a dozen U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Denver and Raleigh, NC, have relocated over the past decade to build new bus stations or create multimodal transit hubs that bring together bus and rail services, Joseph P. Schwieterman, a professor of public service at DePaul University in Chicago.