Rising from ruins of 9/11, a new transportation hub

Gannett State Bureau | 12/14/01 | By LILO H. STAINTON

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NEW YORK -- Emerging from the PATH train in downtown Manhattan, commuters ascend banks of elevators and emerge into a soaring, sun-filled atrium. Paneled in light blue and white, terraced shopping spaces rise three or four stories to the North and South, while a glass wall provides a glimpse of the World Financial Center to the West.

The 1/9 subway line slides along the west end of this central hall, the N/R tracks line the east side. Signs direct travelers through a bright hallway, complete with moving floors, to a host of other subways; the A, C, 2, 3, 4, 5, J and M lines that now converge at the sprawling Broadway-Nassau/Fulton Street stop. Visitors coming from New Jersey can travel all the way to the upper East Side without going outside.

This is the vista likely to face tourists and commuters using public transportation to enter lower Manhattan before the decade's end, according to the the vision of planners with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which was shared with Gannett New Jersey newspapers last week.

The Port Authority is charged with designing an underground transit hub to improve access to Downtown, replacing the subterranean mall and PATH station destroyed by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center buildings overhead.

"The new stations will untangle the knot of 15 subway lines that converge Downtown, and then connect the PATH to the AirTrain (to JFK Airport)," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in his speech Thursday on redeveloping lower Manhattan. He also called for a direct PATH link to Newark Liberty International Airport, something Gov. James E. McGreevey has supported.

"Those two stations should also be exhilarating gateways that lift everyone's eyes and spirits -- whether it's a visitor from Buenos Aires seeing lower Manhattan for the first time ever, or a commuter from New Jersey seeing it for the first time that day," Bloomberg said. "These stations can be the first of lower Manhattan's many additions to the landmarks of tomorrow."

Plans for the structures that will rise above ground are being drafted by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which has hired seven design teams that will present proposals next week. Concepts unveiled by the Development Corporation in July drew fire from critics who said they were too focused on office space. Now the agency and the Port Authority have agreed to work together on a an all-inclusive master plan, which will be made public in February.

Port Authority officials declined to comment on specifics of their plan, but Executive Director Joseph Seymour has made it clear downtown Manhattan's future depends on transportation. He told a civic association last month that work on a temporary PATH station at the site -- slated to open in early 2004 -- is well under way, as is reconstruction of the Exchange Place station in Jersey City.

The final complex, a $2 billion "downtown grand terminal," will be "one of the most ambitious transportation projects in New York in decades," Seymour said.

"It needs to be a grand hall, with an important expanse," added Port Authority Chairman Jack Sinagra, a former state senator and East Brunswick mayor. Both Sinagra and Seymour praised Bloomberg's goals and said his vision dovetails with their plans.

Other supporters of the transit hub include the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a regional advocacy group working to expand public transit options. They like Bloomberg's plans to extend direct-rail links to the airports, but expressed some concerns that these projects might absorb funds destined for other important transportation projects, like the long-awaited Second Avenue subway.

The federal government pledged billions to help rebuild New York in the wake of the terrorist strike, including $4.5 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency devoted to transportation improvements.

"With the new PATH station possibly extending east, and new transit hub at Fulton Street and Broadway, New Jersey residents will have increased access into lower Manhattan," said Kate Slevin, a spokeswoman for Tri-State. Bloomberg's "vision calls to increase mobility for the region and untie the network of subways downtown, which would be an improvement for those who commute, work or live downtown."

Port Authority officials would not discuss specific locations for their transit hub plans. But according to the planners' vision, the main atrium-style hall would be located between the 1/9 and N/R trains, near Church and Vessey streets. Underground corridors, many with moving floors, provide links to entrances on Broadway and further east, near Wall Street.

The plans also call for a hallway extending west from the main hall, connecting to the World Trade Center site, where a memorial to the nearly 3,000 lives lost is planned. Another corridor continues west to the World Financial Center's palm tree-lined Winter Garden. From there, the Hudson River ferries that now shuttle thousands of New Jersey commuters daily are just a short walk across a waterfront plaza.

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You're right about needing JOBS. But there is already a lot of vacant space downtown, so buildings aren't the first priority. You need to improve transportation downtown to stem the exodus to mid-town and elsewhere.