The current port authority terminal, despised by commuters and ridiculed by comedians, has a demolition date that needs to be replaced by a sleek modern structure.
Port Authority officials on Thursday unveiled a final zoning plan for a land replacement that includes a five-story bus terminal, about 1 million square feet of bus storage and theater building between 9th and 10th Avenues, and a larger set of slopes directly. from and to the Lincoln Tunnel, which will open between 2030 and 2031.
The new terminal design also includes infrastructure for the future construction of four high towers over portions of the new bus terminal that could help fund it, by selling air rights and payments instead of taxes the city shares with the government. Federal funding can also be requested. No prize was given during the presentation.
“This is by far the best plan the port authority has received,” said Rick Cotton, executive director, after outlining the plan and its history. ‘We believe it will receive support from bus riders, from the neighbors. It has achieved all the public policy objectives and handled it with sophistication. ”
The replacement terminal, storage building and driveway structure will be built entirely on the territory of the port authority, addressing concerns from surrounding neighbors that their property for the bus terminal will be condemned. The plan also removes city buses from the city’s streets and addresses traffic and pollution problems caused by shuttle buses, Cotton said.
The 2 million-square-foot main terminal will have five floors of more than 160 bus gates, and better circulation within to prevent displacement, said Steve Plate, director of the main capital projects. The storage and stage building for buses will be a step further, with charging infrastructure for electric buses, he said.
“It really is a world-class facility,” Plate said. “We will make this facility the best it can be … it will be an example to others in the world.”
The plan replaces the plan to build in, which would add two floors to the existing terminals that have been studied and adapted since it floated in 2017.
Instead, the plan adds the construction of a four-story building for storage and theater buildings, which will be used as a temporary bus terminal while the current terminal building in 8th Avenue is demolished and replaced, Platt said. Buses will be parked after the morning rush hour, instead of returning to New Jersey until the evening rush hour, which would reduce delays.
Commuters using the bus terminal may also sigh with relief that it is terminating two competing plans to move the bus terminal to Javits Center, and are being criticized for being blocks from the 12 metro lines they can get at the existing bus terminal.
“The feedback could not have been clearer. The 11th Avenue locations received objections from bus drivers and the community, ”Cotton said. “It was not near subways and the community was afraid that thousands of commuters would be forced to walk through the neighborhood.”
The neighborhood will also convert two parks from bus parking areas, covering a total of 3.5 hectares.
Pre-COVID-19 studies predict that 30,000 bus commuters would use the terminal by 2025-2026. Since the pandemic, bus management of NJ Transit is only 35% of the levels before coronavirus, and management of bus connections between urban countries is slower than local bus use.
While a new management study is likely to be done as part of a federal environmental assessment process, the replacement will still meet a 2040 forecast of 30% increase in capacity of the 260,000 daily passengers who used it before the pandemic, Cotton said. said.
With the release of the final scoping document, government officials asked the Federal Transit Administration to begin the final environmental assessment. While that happens, the government will “do intensive design and preliminary engineering work,” Plate said. “We want to find the way to build faster with the least disruption.”
The attempt to replace the aging bus terminal, which is used as an unworthy gateway to New York City, began in 2014. The majority leader of the Senate, Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, took the then chairman of the port authority, John Degnan, on a bus ride to the terminal. that year to show him about the conditions commuters face on a daily basis.
Degnan ordered a $ 90 million repair project to deal with the major problems with bus terminals while the Authority studied the replacement of the building.
“I am delighted to see the Port Authority continue to build an extensive bus terminal on the current site, where New Jersey commuters will still have easy access to the many subway and bus lines that run on Eighth Avenue,” he said. said Weinberg. “New Jersey spoke with a united, dual voice, and we had to fight hard to get the new Port Authority bus terminal into the current 10-year capital plan.”
The debate included a design competition that the government held in 2016 for a new bus terminal. None of the five finalists was declared a ‘winner’ of the competition by the authorities, although one led to the option of moving the bus terminal to the Javits Center basement.
The replacement of the bus terminals was embroiled in two-state politics with government commissioners appointed by the New York government, Andrew Cuomo. Last week, Cuomo included a replacement bus terminal in his state address.
Eventually, Weinberg and New York Congressman Jerold Nadler co-chaired the Bi-State Port Authority Bus Terminal Workgroup for the past four years.
“This has long been our preferred option because it holds a one-seat ride for commuters in New Jersey while maintaining easy access to local subway and bus lines,” said State Senator Tom Kean Jr., R -Union, who was also in the working group. .
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Larry Higgs can be reached at [email protected].