$10 Billion for a Bus Terminal

As if it isn’t bad enough that New York City is spending $2.2 billion a mile building a new subway, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says that replacing the Port Authority Bus Terminal will cost $8 billion to $10 billion. That estimate is up from a mere $800 million a year ago.


Some have called the Port Authority Bus Terminal one of the ten ugliest buildings in the world. Wikipedia photo by Roger Rowlett.

Port Authority officials “hope” that the federal government will pay for most of it, just as the feds paid three-fourth of the cost of the World Trade Center transit hub, which came in at $2.8 billion. Much of the current terminal is used for parking, shops, advertising, and other income-producing activities, yet it still manages to lose $100 million on operations.


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The current terminal fills the long city block between 8th and 9th avenues and 40th and 41st streets, with bus ramps from the Lincoln Tunnel covering another block or two. Most of the buildings on three sides of the terminal are high rises, suggesting that the low-rise terminal is not making the best use of the city’s expensive land. Since the terminal currently serves 225,000 people per day, it seems reasonable to think that a new one could be built as a part of a high-rise office building at no cost to taxpayers. Office vacancy rates in Manhattan are reasonably low, suggesting there is room for another high-rise office tower.


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Click the plus button four times for an excellent aerial view of the terminal.

Unfortunately, the availability of federal funds for transit boondoggles makes it unlikely that Port Authority officials will think of this option. Instead, they are likely to spend hundreds of millions of dollars writing all of the environmental impact statements and other plans required to apply for federal funds so they can tap that source of revenue. This is just one more reason why the feds should stop funding these types of transit capital projects.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

4 Responses to $10 Billion for a Bus Terminal

  1. Frank says:

    I understand that this blog is more focused on urban planning rather than central economic planning, but it would be nice if, from time to time, the Antiplanner could shine a light on massive MIC/central economic planning waste, like the F-35, which was originally projected to cost $233 billion but may not cost as much as $1.5 TRILLION. Compared to this, a $10 billion bus station—which will be useful to millions of people—is small potatoes.

  2. ahwr says:

    You forgot about the wing they added a few decades ago, it takes half of the block up to 42nd street doesn’t it? Under income producing activities shouldn’t you add its function as a bus terminal? It’s not free for private carriers. Though the PA’s biggest customer, NJTransit, gets something like a 95% discount.

    http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/03/8564079/plans-new-bus-terminal-confront-steep-cost-estimates

    They are considering helping defray the cost by building a highrise or two. Not too far away you have the Hudson Yards project, and there’s been talk of rezoning midtown east around GCT which would allow for taller office buildings there, so it’s unlikely the PA could see enough of a windfall from adding a skyscraper to cover the whole project.

    This is a leak of a report, details are scarce. I wonder if a good chunk of the cost is for land acquisition – they want to build a temporary terminal while they rebuild the existing one, and finish with a larger footprint and taller terminal. If you have to knock down a tall building that requires a large outlay, but you get a lot of it back when you put up a new one after, assuming real estate prices don’t crash. Amtrak faces the same issue just a bit south. Instead of more efficiently using the existing tracks they want to expand Penn station and add more tracks in ‘Penn South’ as part of their gateway project – there are buildings there they’ll have to tear down to make room.

    I also wonder if their projection of a 51% increase bus demand is accurate. Does it assume Amtrak builds their Gateway/Penn south project? A few years back a report said bus ridership would drop 40% once ARC was finished. A couple plans of various seriousness have been floated over the years to connect the NJ tracks that terminate in Hoboken with the LIRR line through Brooklyn, with a stop in Downtown Manhattan. What impact would that have on bus demand? The PABT was built in the first place because having so many buses on the street produced a large backlash. How clean can you make buses? If you get their emissions clean enough or nonexistent I wonder if people would tolerate some of them running on a crosstown street turned transitway so you don’t have to build a larger terminal. A lot of the buses are commuter buses that may have short enough routes to run on a battery in ten years, it doesn’t just serve intercity lines that would be harder to do that with.

  3. ahwr says:

    If interested, some more on the terminal from the PA. Every option they consider involves at least one highrise to help pay for the project.

    http://www.panynj.gov/bus-terminals/pdf/bus-board-3-19-15u-no-annotations.pdf

    They discussed it at their board meeting on 3/19

    http://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/board-committee-meeting-videos.html

  4. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    ahwr wrote:

    If interested, some more on the terminal from the PA. Every option they consider involves at least one highrise to help pay for the project.

    http://www.panynj.gov/bus-terminals/pdf/bus-board-3-19-15u-no-annotations.pdf

    They discussed it at their board meeting on 3/19

    http://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/board-committee-meeting-videos.html

    Looks like it is not going to happen (emphasis added below):

    ENR New York: $9B Renovation Plan for NYC’s Port Authority Bus Terminal Rejected

    JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — A plan to transform the nation’s busiest bus terminal from a crumbling eyesore in the heart of New York City into a gleaming new facility stalled on Thursday as transit officials rejected the approximately $9 billion price tag and demanded cheaper options.

    Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey , which runs area transit hubs, revolted against the Manhattan bus terminal proposal presented by agency officials, saying they need to go back to the drawing board and consider other options, including building the new terminal in New Jersey and creating a rail link to Manhattan or finding a cheaper place in the city for construction.

    The Port Authority Bus Terminal , long considered an embarrassing stain on the city’s mass transit system, is located in Times Square near some of the city’s most famous attractions, including Broadway , Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden . It suffers from cracked floors, crumbling ceiling tiles and severe overcrowding during rush hour.

    Commissioners acknowledged for years the terminal needs to be replaced, but the project never took off amid the bistate agency’s political scandals and increasing financial burdens.

    “Either we are going to build a 21st-century bus terminal or abandon our bus passengers to a Fourth World commuting experience,” Commissioner Kenneth Lipper said.

    The cost estimates, ranging from about $8 billion to nearly $10 billion , are more than twice as expensive as the $4 billion World Trade Center transportation hub, which was criticized for running over budget. Commissioners suggested selling off Port Authority property, including the World Trade Center , could help pay for the new bus terminal.

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