re: #28 Dark_Falcon

One can argue that the PANY would have undertaken more transit/infrastructure work but for the WTC work - that’s the gist of the argument. There’s some truth to the fact that the PANYNJ has had to focus on rebuilding at the WTC and that’s taken away from its core job of improving transit infrastructure in the region but the Port Authority got away from its core job decades ago when it got into the real estate business in the first place when it went and obtained the land to build the WTC in the 1960s into the 1970s.

The agency is spending quite a bit on rebuilding, but at this point, the costs for rebuilding are largely on corporate entities (Silverstein for one). The Port Authority’s responsible for overseeing more than $1.2 billion in overruns on the PATH hub (the same PATH hub that just got flooded out in Sandy and where PATH service resumed beginning this morning, but not without a hiccup).

The PANY can raise tolls/fares, and it’s done so - and the $1.2 billion it expects from the hikes fits the overruns on the PATH hub. The agency has a full slate of transit projects on its table including raising the Bayonne Bridge for post-Panamax shipping, rebuilding the Lincoln tunnel helix, restringing the GWB stringers, and airport renovations at LGA and EWR as well as planning for a Goethals Bridge replacement.

If the PANY didn’t have to do WTC rebuilding, it’s possible the agency could have moved ahead on a PATH expansion to Newark Airport, could have better funded the ARC/Gateway tunnel scheme, extended Airtrain to LGA, and expanded port facilities. Those are long term projects and some are moving ahead even with the full slate of projects on its hands.

It’s also important to remember that the PANY is a bistate agency answerable to both governors of NY and NJ, so they’re going to do what their respective governors want them to focus on. In effect, that means that infrastructure improvements in one state have to get signed off by the governor from the other - and reciprocity/”equal” project time/status comes in to play. That too leads to gridlock bureaucratically as the agency tries to balance what is done in both states leaving no one truly happy with what they’re doing.