"The
construction is going to be rough and dirty," said Robert
Davidson, the P.A.'s chief architect. "We just need to make
it happen quickly."
The temporary station will cost $540 million and the project
includes improvements to the Exchange Pl. station in New Jersey,
because the temporary station at ground zero will not have the
same type of turnaround track. The Manhattan station will also
not have amenities such as air-conditioning.
Commuters will rise from a 60-foot escalator, and then walk east
on a pedestrian bridge, possibly overlooking construction at
ground zero. Davidson said the open-air, covered bridge will
allow construction at the W.T.C. site.
The escalator would rise from its old location, up to where the
Trade Center's J Crew store used to be, then up to the old
Borders location. The pedestrian bridge will leave pedestrians
on Church St., which will be more inconvenient to workers going
west to the World Financial Center and reverse commuters
returning to Battery Park City. Davidson said there were certain
trade-offs to get the new station done quickly, but the
pedestrian tunnel would run from the W.F.C.'s Winter Garden to
Broadway and could have a moving walkway.
"If we do it right, it will be more like an airport than a
transit complex," Davidson said immediately after the
meeting. Of the temporary design, he said: "We think it has
the flexibility to accommodate any of the development that could
occur in the site."
Anthony Cracchiolo, the Port's director of capital projects,
said the pedestrian tunnel would likely cost between $1.5
billion and $2.5 billion. The Port Authority has budgeted the
money to build the temporary PATH. station and to study the
pedestrian tunnel idea.
"We're trying to really plan out the permanent station to
build it in a way that we hope will be better than it was before
Sept. 11," said Cracchiolo. He said the temporary plan may
become part of the permanent plan.
"A permanent station could build on the temporary station
or it could move to somewhere else on the site," he said.
Cracchiolo said PATH used to serve 65,000 passenger trips a day,
which represents at least 32,000 people. He said with the
destruction of the Twin Tower offices, ridership to the PATH
station would obviously be down if the PATH station reopened
tomorrow, but in 2003, the World Financial Center will be
reopened as will most of the offices near the Trade Center.
The tunnel would have convenient links to the 1,9, A,C,E and N,R
stations near the Trade center as well as to the
Broadway-Nassau-Fulton stations to the east. He said the
Metropolitan Transit Authority is considering a long-term
project to make better pedestrian links to those east side
stations.
The tunnel would allow for large areas of retail space, which
could replace some of the W.T.C. underground mall. It would not
be opened for at least four or five years.
Cracchiolo told members there has been a lot of coordination
with the M.T.A., which is controlled by Gov. George Pataki.
"We worked closely with the M.T.A. to get to this
point," he said.
The P.A., controlled by the New York and New Jersey governors,
owns the ground zero land and has leased it to developer Larry
Silverstein. Pataki has also set up the Lower Manhattan
Development Corp. to plan Lower Manhattan's future. There has
been some confusion over precisely how all of the agencies will
interact. n an interview a week ago, Assembly Speaker Sheldon
Silver said he didn't think there would be problems since Pataki
controls the L.M.D.C., the M.T.A. and Trade Center-related P.A.
issues. Neighborhood people at last week's meeting reacted
favorably to the plans.
David Stanke, a B.P.C. resident, said he liked the designs, but
he asked officials consider a PATH exit further to the west.
Members applauded officials, which raised the eyebrows of Paul
Goldstein, the community board's veteran district manager:.
"Wow, applause for the Port Authority."
|
