NY: PATH/Fail: The Story of the World's Most Expensive Train Station

[marmar]

NY: PATH/Fail: The Story of the World's Most Expensive Train Station

Stephen Jacob Smith
Source: New York Observer
Created: May 16, 2013

At $3.74 billion, plus another $200 million in contingencies, the "Transportation Hub" at the World Trade Center-not even the busiest station in the Financial District-will be far and away the most expensive train station built in modern history.

The Port Authority used to set records in good ways. The George Washington Bridge was a marvel of engineering in its day, the world's longest bridge when it was built, and still the busiest. The Port Authority Bus Terminal, opened in 1950, is to this day the largest on earth by passenger volume.

But today, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey doesn't brag about the records it sets. One World Trade Center, born the Freedom Tower and taken over by the Port in 2006, will be the most expensive office building in the world. The "Vehicle Security Center," an underground tour bus garage and road network serving the World Trade Center complex, may very well be the most expensive parking garage in history.

And then there's the PATH station to New Jersey, the most troubled project at one of the world's most troubled construction sites. At $3.74 billion, plus another $200 million in contingencies, the "Transportation Hub" at the World Trade Center-not even the busiest station in the Financial District-will be far and away the most expensive train station built in modern history.

The Hub, as it's known in Port Authority speak, will be the crowning artistic statement of the World Trade Center complex, perhaps the last grand gesture at a site that was supposed to be full of them. "Let me draw for you what I cannot say," its architect, Santiago Calatrava, said at the unveiling in 2004. Then, wrote Newsweek, "he fluently sketched a child releasing a bird-a spellbinding image that had inspired his design." .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/10943671/ny-path-fail-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-expensive-train-station