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The port authority has ruled out several alternatives, including building the new terminal under the old one, under the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center or in New Jersey.
“They came up with a much better plan than they started out with,” said Thomas K. Wright, executive director of the Regional Plan Association, an influential planning group.
Mr Wright said replacing the terminal is a necessity, regardless of the cost, because of the critical role it plays in the city’s daily commute. More than 250,000 people passed there on a typical weekday before the pandemic, according to the port authority. Since March, this traffic has decreased by more than 65%.
“New York ceases to exist without its connections to surrounding communities and the workforce,” Wright said. “Without it, the city enters a period of decline.”
The bus terminal, a brick hulk perched at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, has long exceeded capacity – when it opened in the late 1950s, it was expected to accommodate 60,000 passengers a day. Although the station was rehabilitated in the early 1980s, it cannot accommodate the crush of mainly New Jersey commuters who use it under normal circumstances.
The Port Authority wants the new terminal to be able to accommodate 1,000 buses during the evening rush hour, compared to around 850 today. It would also be designed to provide charging equipment for electric buses, according to the plan.
Buses may be less romantic than trains, but other major cities have invested in their transit systems to help reduce traffic and car pollution. More than a dozen U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Denver, and Raleigh, North Carolina, have moved over the past decade to build new bus stations or create multimodal transit hubs that bring together services from bus and train, said Joseph P. Schwieterman, professor of public service at DePaul University in Chicago.
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