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Perklol

Nov 10, 2014 7:10 AM

More photos by Benjamin Kabak at tumblr

Read more: http://secondavenuesagas.com/2014/11...ransit-center/

A look inside the new Fulton St. Transit Center

By Benjamin Kabak, November 9, 2014

Quote:

The problem with federal funding is how inflexible it is. The feds may be willing to pony over a significantly amount of dollars — upwards of one billion for certain projects — but that money can’t be shuffled around to better uses. It’s earmarked for a specific project, and the local agency receiving that money has to spend it on the specific project, even if agency heads know how badly they could use that same dollar amount for something far more worthwhile. Such as the contradictions of the Fulton St. Transit Center which will open to the public at 5 a.m.

On Sunday, politicians and MTA officials past and present gathered to celebrate the opening of the Fulton St. Transit Center, and in a way, it was a big deal. Two former MTA heads — Joe Lhota and Lee Sander — were in attendance as well as Mysore Nagaraja, the former head of MTA Capital Construction, who oversaw the start of this project well over a decade ago. Chuck Schumber, Jerry Nadler and Sheldon Silver didn’t miss the photo op either. And finally, the construction surrounding Fulton St. will end, and as tenants fill into 1 World Trade Center, the Fulton St. part of the puzzle is complete.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3942/...113f6ecc_z.jpg
IMG_2430 by bkabak, on Flickr

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3942/...113f6ecc_z.jpg
IMG_2430 by bkabak, on Flickr/pZVgDe]

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3955/...0251c688_z.jpg[/url]
IMG_2429 by bkabak, on Flickr

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5611/...ab76ec5a_z.jpg
Dey St. Concourse by bkabak, on Flickr

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3952/...6b98eb06_z.jpg
IMG_2410 by bkabak, on Flickr

Qubert

Nov 10, 2014 6:31 PM

/\ Looks nice but I don't like the glass egg. If the MTA had consolidated air rights over and adjacent to that corner I bet they could have sold them to a developer to build a tower on that corner for enough money to finance the project. Manhattan land is too valuable to be taken up in such a way.

Innsertnamehere

Nov 11, 2014 12:48 AM

this project was way more than any tower could finance, they would be lucky to get back 10% of the cost, only for it to be eaten up by working around a large buildings foundation.

mrnyc

Nov 11, 2014 11:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qubert (Post 6802274)

i agree it's nothing much to see outside, but wait until you get inside, it's stunning. and it will only get better when the shops open up and the wtc transit hub connection can open. :tup:

more:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=214183

Perklol

Nov 12, 2014 1:51 AM

http://observer.com/2013/05/pathfail/

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

By Stephen Jacob Smith

http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.c...lane.jpg?w=635

Quote:

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.”

When the grandiose ambitions and the emotions of 9/11 met with the famously flush Port Authority, disaster struck. Mission creep, an inattentive governor and extreme politicization sent costs skyward, eventually outstripping even the record-setting resources devoted to it. Its wings had to be stilled and its supports thickened, the bird in flight devolving into an immobilized stegosaurus. The world’s most expensive train station, it seems, was not expensive enough to contain all of New York’s dreams.

For nearly $4 billion, most cities could build entire subway lines. Even the MTA, which frequently breaks cost records of its own, managed to build its Fulton Center hub, a renovation of five densely tangled lines, for $1.4 billion. Nobody’s subway tunnels cost more than the MTA’s, but even they could fund most of the second phase of the Second Avenue subway, from 96th Street to 125th, with that kind of cash.

The World Trade Center PATH station is actually not a particularly busy one. “No one intelligently could say that the level of design and architecture associated with it was commensurate with the level of usage,” said one former commissioner. (Like nearly everyone we interviewed for this story, he would only speak on the condition of anonymity.).....

Perklol

Nov 12, 2014 4:45 AM

http://online.wsj.com/articles/compl...ing-1409788832

Complex Design, Political Disputes Send World Trade Center Rail Hub's Cost Soaring
Project is Eight Years Behind Schedule and At Least $2 Billion Over Budget

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/i...0903190920.jpg
Work continues on a new station at the redeveloped World Trade Center site in New York City. The project is at least $2 billion over budget. Associated Press

By Eliot Brown, Sept. 3, 2014 8:00 p.m. ET

Quote:

NEW YORK—The most expensive train station in the U.S. is taking shape at the site of the former World Trade Center, a majestic marble-and-steel commuter hub that was seen by project boosters as a landmark to American hope and resilience.

Instead, the terminal connecting New Jersey with downtown Manhattan has turned into a public-works embarrassment. Overtaking the project's emotional resonance is a practical question: How could such a high-profile project fall eight years behind schedule and at least $2 billion over budget?

An analysis of federal oversight reports viewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with current and former officials show a project sunk in a morass of politics and government. Those redesigning the World Trade Center—destroyed by terrorists in 2001—were besieged by demands from various agencies and officials, and "the answer was never, 'No,' " said Christopher Ward, executive director from 2008 to 2011 of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the project's builder.

Why that happened is more difficult to untangle. The Port Authority, run jointly by the two states, has long been known for political infighting. City, state and federal agencies, as well as real-estate developer Larry Silverstein, also joined in. In public and private clashes, they each pushed to include their own ideas, making the site's design ever more complex, former project officials said.

These disputes added significant delays and costs to the transit station, which serves as a backbone to the bigger 16-acre redevelopment site, connecting the World Trade Center's four planned office towers, underground retail space and the 9/11 museum, the officials said and oversight reports show.

When completed in 2015, the station is on track to cost between $3.7 and $4 billion, more than double its original budget of $1.7 billion to $2 billion.

Top officials at the agency say the project will be a boon for lower Manhattan when it opens, and they are committed to finishing the job. But now that the price tag has run so high, they question whether it should have been scaled back earlier.

"Did you need to build the $3.7 billion transportation hub to achieve the meaningfulness of the World Trade Center redevelopment?" asked Scott Rechler, vice chairman of the Port Authority since 2011. "In hindsight, I don't know if I would have come to that conclusion."

....

But current and former officials who worked on the project, a terminal for the PATH commuter rail system, said in interviews they believed demands, disagreements and poor coordination among the many parties working on the World Trade Center site spurred hundreds of millions of dollars in overruns.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for example, insisted the memorial plaza be finished by the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The request added more than $100 million to costs and months of delay, said Port Authority officials, because once the plaza was built, a large swath of the underground terminal below the plaza had to be built without use of cranes or other large equipment. Workers had to move materials by hand.

Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, said completion of the plaza was "extremely important to the 9/11 families, important for the entire city and, frankly, the country," adding the ex-mayor stands by his decision.

"The fact that the station is a national symbol for government waste has everything to do with its original design and limited purpose," Mr. LaVorgna said.

....

But the overruns have affected commuters and travelers elsewhere, the agency said. Because federal support money has been capped, cost overruns for the rail terminal are paid by the Port Authority.

The project has contributed to the agency's strained finances, former officials said. Tolls for the agency's bridges and tunnels that connect Manhattan with New Jersey have more than doubled in the past decade. John F. Kennedy International Airport, La Guardia Airport and the Newark airport—also operated by the Port Authority—face budget constraints.

Port Authority officials acknowledged that the train station has prevented other investments, though they said they were moving forward with such projects such as a new La Guardia terminal as the World Trade Center project winds down.

"The PATH hub absorbed much of the revenue that should have gone to the airports," said Mitchell Moss, director of New York University's Rudin Center for Transportation. "Airline passengers are subsidizing the infrastructure for New Jersey commuters."

Perklol

Nov 13, 2014 9:30 AM

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...its-its-report

M.T.A. ‘reinvention’ panel awaits its report

By Dana Rubinstein 12:52 p.m. | Nov. 11, 2014

http://www.yimbynews.com/wp-content/...c68f826a_z.jpg
image from yimby http://www.yimbynews.com/2014/10/tim...authority.html

Quote:

On September 4, the commission Governor Andrew Cuomo charged with “reinventing” the M.T.A. held its final meeting.

More than two months later, the commission’s members said they're not sure why the fruit of their labors—a report recommending how best to ready the authority for the demands of the 21st century—hasn’t been released yet.

“I have no idea,” emailed Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, an advocate of bus rapid transit, and a member of the commission.

....In May, as Governor Andrew Cuomo's re-election campaign was kicking into high gear, he directed the M.T.A., which he effectively controls, to "empanel a Transportation Reinvention Commission to examine its network and develop a plan for the future."

The M.T.A. complied, convening a star-studded panel of transit experts that proceeded to hear public testimony from the region's leading transportation stakeholders.

Earnest commission meetings ensued.

“There were innovative and bold ideas discussed on the commission and I’m looking forward to the recommendations being released," said Veronica Vanterpool, a commission member and executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. "With the M.T.A.’s draft capital program having been released late September, and a $15.2 billion anticipated deficit in that program, a timely release of the recommendations will provide a blueprint now for discussing the capital needs of the 2015-2019 program while also priming the discussion for the priority investments of the next 50 years.”

.....Now, commissioners aren't sure what's going on, with some speculating that politics might have something to do with it.

“Clearly the whole process is related to the Governor political needs,” emailed Peñalosa. “Which does not invalidate it. In the end, it is a way to generate consciousness, or pressure, for more funds for M.T.A.”

The governor's office had no immediate comment.

“The Commission has done a lot of great work, but could not address the funding challenges facing the M.T.A. until the proposed Capital Plan for 2015-19 was released in October and the public review of the plan commenced," said Kathryn Wylde, president and C.E.O. of the Partnership for New York City and a commission member, in an emailed statement. "Now that this process is underway, I assume that the Commission will reconvene in order to help determine how existing resources can be used more efficiently and where the new revenues needed to maintain and expand the system will come from."

Perklol

Nov 13, 2014 9:51 AM

^^
I should point out that image of Gov. Coumo came New York YIMBY (and from a flickr account...) and not Capital New York.

Perklol

Nov 13, 2014 3:39 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2005965

Queens transit advocates say their efforts to reactivative the dormant Rockaway Beach Rail line are on a roll

Queens College released its survey of people who live near the 3.5 mile abandoned rail line. Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder and others who want the train reactivated said they have public support. QueensWay boosters, who envision a High Line-type park on the tracks found encouragement in the survey as well.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...b.jpg?enlarged
Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder said a new study by Queens College shows support for a plan to reactivate the defunct Rockaway Beach rail line. Goldfeder and others want a train to run along the tracks to give south Queens residents more transportation options. But others want to build a High Line-type park called the QueensWay.

BY LISA L. COLANGELO NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, November 10, 2014, 5:52 PM

Quote:

Transit advocates touted a study released Monday to bolster their case for a plan to reactivate a long-abandoned Queens rail line.

But a representative of park lovers who want to see the decrepit Rockaway Beach tracks transformed into a High Line-type green space showed up at the Queens College press conference to derail their efforts.

“Queens residents say they need more transit options,” said Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder, who supports firing up the old train line that snakes through Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Woodhaven and Glendale over to Forest Hills and Rego Park.

“This would connect northern and southern Queens in a way that is not currently possible,” he said, pointing to statistics in the study that showed almost 40% of local residents surveyed wanted to see the line reactivated.

Goldfeder also used the setting to announce that Transit Workers Union Local 100 was weighing in on the side of train service for the property.

....The students who worked with the college’s Department of Urban Studies over the summer distributed some 5,000 surveys to residents and 800 to businesses in the neighborhoods near the track. Less than 500 were returned, college officials said.

Prof. Scott Larson, who coordinated the study, said the team worked hard to keep the survey impartial. The goal, he said, was to find out where respondents stand.

The 3.5 mile railroad line stopped running more than 50 years ago. Large swathes — especially the portion in Forest Park — have been covered by weeds and trees with the tracks either buried or missing.

....Plans to transform it into a park have been discussed for years, but the concept began to gain traction in 2011 when newly formed Friends of the QueensWay partnered with the Trust for Public Land.

They have locked horns with Goldfeder and other transit advocates, who argue that a train is more necessary than a park in that area.

“Residents living within half a mile already have access to more parkland than the average New York City resident, Goldfeder said. “(Train reactivation) could result in half a million daily subway trips.

Goldfeder said he believes the rail could be reactivated for under $1 billion. The cost for the QueensWay has been pegged at about $120 million

Perklol

Nov 13, 2014 3:41 PM

Queens College findings/report http://qcurban.org/office-of-communi...dies/our-work:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ju0mwarj00...Study.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yltcstbita...ults.xlsx?dl=0

Eightball

Nov 13, 2014 5:45 PM

Half a million transit riders for under a billion dollars? Surely that would rate the highest of any transit project in the country (rider per dollar metric)?

aquablue

Nov 14, 2014 5:51 PM

They should get it done. NY lacks any decent rail to airports. So far, it's all been done half-assed if I may say so myself. Excuse my French, but it's true.

Perklol

Nov 15, 2014 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aquablue (Post 6807632)

They should get it done. NY lacks any decent rail to airports. So far, it's all been done half-assed if I may say so myself. Excuse my French, but it's true.

Did you read it? Its gone now :???:

err or maybe I should ask, what did you read?

Eightball

Nov 15, 2014 7:29 PM

Interesting, longer read about the Fulton center

http://m.fastcodesign.com/3038473/sl...tal-to-the-sky

Nexis4Jersey

Nov 16, 2014 4:12 AM

Perklol

Dec 1, 2014 7:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYguy (Post 6826779)

Sunnyside Yards in Queens, which could hold the kind of convention center the city needs.

By DANIEL L. DOCTOROFF
NOV. 28, 2014

Don't listen to anything this Doctoroff guy that worked for Bloomberg has to say.

Quote:

Total estimated costs for the platform, the convention center and the related open space and infrastructure would be about $8 billion, according to an analysis done for me by SHoP Architects and HR&A Advisors. But the beauty of this plan is that it can all be financed at no new net cost to taxpayers. The Javits property could be sold for about $4 billion. The incremental real estate tax revenues from the new developments on both the Sunnyside and existing Javits sites would roughly pay for the difference.

:haha:

Right, and how's Hudson Yards payment for the subway coming along? ;)

For those of you that don't know Doctoroff said --

http://observer.com/2013/07/dan-doct...nother-subway/

Quote:

But not everybody’s ideas for transit struck us as so enlightened. Bloomberg (first the mayor, and now the corporation) executive Dan Doctoroff and Brookfield’s John Zuccotti sat on stage and chatted, and we could scarcely believe our ears when they started talking about the Second Avenue subway: they hate it.

“A silly little spur that doesn’t generate anything other than some convenience for people who are perfectly happy to live where they lived before,” Mr. Doctoroff said. Why, he wondered, was the city going through with it, “even though it’s a subway that doesn’t have any value added?” A “pet project” of the MTA and Sheldon Silver, he called it.

Are we talking about the same subway…? The one that will serve one of the densest neighborhoods in the city? The one that’s supposed to relieve a subway line that carries more passengers than the entire Washington Metro system? The one that’s been planned for the better part of a century? The one that Yorkville was upzoned in anticipation of decades ago? The one that, despite having only four stops, is projected to carry more riders than the entire length of the L train?

....

Real estate insiders, on the other hand, think of transit primarily as a way of spurring development, and are not swayed by arguments about easing overcrowding or serving tax-paying citizens. And it wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Doctoroff has argued that transit should serve the needs of developers over existing New Yorkers—when the 7 train stop at 10th Avenue and 41st Street was cut, he downplayed the significance, since buildings were already going up in Hell’s Kitchen without it. (By that logic, what was the point of the entire Independent Subway System, now the A/C/E, B/D/F/M and G trains?)

Mr. Zuccotti did, however, cheer on the 7 train extension to Hudson Yards, lauding the Bloomberg administration’s “outstanding performance.” (Nevermind that it lost a station along the way.) Mr. Doctoroff also made reference to the project paying for itself. (Nevermind that the city has had to chip in a quarter of a billion dollars so far to make up for lackluster tax revenues at Hudson Yards.)

tdawg

Dec 2, 2014 3:13 PM

I don't know, I'm seeing too much brass or chrome in the interior to get me excited. It already looks very 80s.

Perklol

Dec 8, 2014 10:33 PM

I don't post here much (or anywhere else for that matter) but I found a site that does have regular updates on many transportation projects.

Take a look at YIMBY forums... a sneak peak of a train platform part of the at 2nd ave. subway

http://www.yimbyforums.com/t/new-yor...?u=eveningstar

Perklol

Dec 9, 2014 6:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdawg (Post 6828035)

I don't know, I'm seeing too much brass or chrome in the interior to get me excited. It already looks very 80s.

The outside is quite bland and outdated, yes but the interior is kind of nice looking...

Nexis4Jersey

Dec 10, 2014 4:39 AM

All times are GMT. The time now is 4:11 PM.

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