[NYguy]

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...cost-estimates

Plans for a new bus terminal confront steep cost estimates





By Dana Rubinstein
Mar. 16, 2015

It could cost more than $10 billion to replace the Port Authority Bus Terminal at its current location with a bigger, better facility, according to a Port Authority study whose preliminary results will be presented to the board of commissioners Thursday.

That's 10 times the $1 billion price estimate some officials circulated last year.

Were the construction and environmental review process to begin tomorrow—which it won't, because there is no funding on the immediate horizon—it would take at least 15 years to complete, according to three Port Authority officials who would only speak on background with Capital.

Asked for comment, Port Authority spokesman Chris Valens said in an emailed statement: "In 2040, more than 42,000 commuters each hour—the capacity of Citi Field—will use the Port Authority Bus Terminal during the afternoon peak. Through the master planning process, the Port Authority and leading private sector consultants ... are focused on creating a roadmap to address the significant demand for trans-Hudson bus capacity and ensure that hundreds of thousands of commuters each day will continue to help power the economy on both sides of the river for generations to come."

Port Authority officials say one of the reasons the full-replacement option on the existing site is so expensive is because of its ambition: namely to fully accommodate the rapid increase in ridership anticipated in the coming decades (an expectation based both on population projections and bus ridership growth that has, in recent decades, already rendered the Eighth Avenue terminal over capacity).

To meet the demands of ever-rising bus ridership, Port Authority officials are talking about building a five-level terminal that, with ramps, staging and parking, would cover 3.5 full city blocks. The existing three-level facility covers slightly more than 2 blocks.

But first, the Port Authority would have to build a temporary terminal to the west of the current station, then move all bus operations to that facility to allow for the demolition and replacement of the existing terminal.

Upon its completion, the temporary terminal would be used for bus parking, thereby cutting down on the number of buses that have to return to New Jersey after dropping off passengers in Manhattan in the morning, only to make the return trip in the evening, clogging up the tunnel and city streets along the way.

The proposal might also feature a skyscraper on the new terminal's north end.

Other options, which planners believe would cost between $8 billion and $10 billion and take between 10 years and 15 years to complete, include several variations. One could push the terminal a little west, thereby allowing the development of two skyscrapers on Eighth Avenue, with the proceeds from development-rights sales going to help fund the terminal. Another could move the entire terminal west of Ninth Avenue and give all of the existing terminal site over to development.

As even casual users of the facility will tell you, the existing terminal is over capacity and sub-modern.

The terminal handles more daily passengers than Grand Central Terminal. It struggles with delays, reliability issues and buses spilling onto neighborhood streets creating traffic congestion and air pollution. Its structural slabs are deteriorating, and it has a more than $100 million operating deficit.

"Daily operations have become increasingly a delicate balance of fragile elements," Diannae Ehler, who manages the bus terminal and adjacent Lincoln Tunnel, said at a recent City Council hearing.

She also said that by 2020, bus ridership to midtown is estimated to grow between 9 percent and 18 percent. By 2040, it's expected to grow by up to 51 percent.

Because New Jersey residents comprise 12 percent of Manhattan's workforce, the bus station is an essential, if unwieldy and aesthetically unpleasing, part of the region's economy.

In recognition of that, officials have been trying to replace the terminal since the mid-1990s.

In 1999, the Port Authority agreed to sell the air rights over the terminal to a real estate company, which would, in turn build a tower on top of the terminal and help finance the restoration of the bus station underneath.

Nothing much came of that except, perhaps, the enduring concept that a good way to help fund a new bus terminal is to auction of the air above it.

The concepts the Port Authority is considering continue to involve air rights sales, though no one believes that will provide anything near the amount of money required to rebuild the station.

A full rebuild, regardless of whether it's on the existing site, would require significant federal funding as well as support from state and city partners.

Not only is no federal politician championing that sort of thing just yet, but the west side has competing needs.

Amtrak, for example, is seeking federal support to build a new cross-Hudson rail tunnel, called Gateway, to midtown Manhattan. It will cost at least $15 billion and is also not yet funded.

The Port Authority is also exploring other, more short-term ideas, like putting bus storage and staging facilities in other locations in New York and New Jersey, developing a satellite terminal for inter-city buses elsewhere in Manhattan, and making more use of the Hudson River ferries.