BY EILEEN STUKANE | The sprawling entity that is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PA) has slowed the forward march of its planned expansion of its bus terminal in Hell’s Kitchen to form a PA working group with representatives of New York and New Jersey, and enlist community involvement in the project. The determination by members of Community Board 4 (CB4), along with local and state elected officials, has reshaped what began as a contentious conflict. Chelsea Now sat down with Betty Mackintosh, who is heading up CB4’s PA Working Group, and Christine Berthet, co-chair, CB4 Transportation Planning Committee, to gain an understanding of the current status of the PA terminal expansion, and to learn what the future may hold.
To recap, the Hell’s Kitchen community was rocked back on its heels this past spring when the PA announced the planned expansion of its bus terminal, now located between Eighth and Ninth Aves., from W. 40th to W. 42nd Sts. Without seeking input from elected officials or CB4, the PA proposed using eminent domain — the process by which the government takes control of private property for public works — to seize blocks of buildings, which would upend lives and destroy neighborhoods. CB4 mobilized into a force that included local and state elected officials. They held a Town Hall meeting attended by the PA, which then withdrew its initially released designs and presented a new competition for architectural ideas.
Only one of the five winners of the PA’s next design competition included eminent domain in its concept, but the community was still not invited to participate in the process. The cost would be anywhere from $3 billion to $15 billion. Community leaders and elected officials boycotted a September meeting to review the five competition winners, citing continued lack of community involvement on the PA’s part.
That’s when change happened.
With representatives from each state, the PA New York/New Jersey Working Group was formed by the PA following the boycott. The eight New York members of the PA’s NY/NJ Working Group are: US Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, NY State Senator Brad Hoylman, NY State Assemblymembers Richard Gottfried and Linda Rosenthal, City Councilmember Corey Johnson, Community Board 5 Chair Vikki Barbero, and CB4 Chair Delores Rubin. Those five winning designs are now being used for the information they provide, but none of them are likely to be built as presented.
Fast forward to the present and our sit-down with CB4’s Mackintosh and Berthet. (Chelsea Now emailed the PA’s Government and Community Relations representative, Michael Lavery, to request an interview; a press representative replied, stating Lavery was not available to speak on the topic of the PA’s Working Group and the planned bus expansion.)
WHAT’S AT STAKE | According to the PA’s website, on any given weekday 220,000 passengers pass through the PA bus terminal, during 7,000 bus movements. By 2040 the number of passengers is estimated to increase by 35-51%, to about 337,000 passengers each weekday.
The West Side bus terminal, built 65 years ago, will not be able to handle this increased capacity. It can barely manage the hundreds of thousands of people it has passing through today, and an increasing number of buses are overflowing onto the streets, parked in lines along the curbs of Hell’s Kitchen. As Betty Mackintosh stated, “The CB4 district, which is larger than our study area, has the third worst pollution in the city according to the New York City Department of Health.”
All agree that something has to be done to deal with the increased population density, a greater number of daily commuters and buses, and more travelers using more long-distance buses. “The congestion in this neighborhood is double what the average is in the city,” Berthet said. The fact that representatives of New Jersey will now sit at the same table with representatives of New York to resolve the two states’ transportation problems together is a major breakthrough. Bus-related facilities could be in NJ as well as NY; the staging of buses that travel into the city could be resolved together. It has also become clear that what’s at stake is greater than the expansion of one bus terminal.
The PA released its own Trans-Hudson Commuting Capacity Study in September and noted that the demand placed on the PA bus terminal could be reduced by the implementation of other transportation initiatives. Among these initiatives are the Gateway Program that would increase track, tunnel, bridge, and station capacity — eventually creating four mainline tracks between Newark, NJ and Penn Station, NY, with a new two-track Hudson River tunnel. Expanded Trans-Hudson Ferry Services and a Number 7 subway line extension to Secaucus, NJ are also under consideration.
“The study depicts a system where the bus terminal is just one piece,” Berthet noted. “The system goes into the Lincoln Tunnel, all the way to 495, where the buses are lining up and coming in. If you are going to double the size of the bus terminal, if you don’t double the size of the Lincoln Tunnel, what are you going to do? The whole system needs to be scaled up at the same time. From the community’s standpoint, it’s very important where the terminal is — but then from a transportation point of view, let’s not build an enormous terminal if the structure is not scaled appropriately. The PA is starting to understand that it needs to think as a system. I think this is a very big step in the right direction.”
CB4’S FOCUS ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD | The PA owns the bus terminal’s land, but it also owns other plots of land on the West Side. The CB4 PA Working Group is busy mapping out the community and locating the PA’s properties by doing a city planning-type review. Mackintosh’s city planning experience has helped move the mapping along. “We’re also going to have some maps showing issues and problems we have, vehicular traffic, bus traffic, buses lining the curbside in the community district,” Berthet added. “We’re systematically studying the area so that we understand what we’re doing when someone says, ‘Why not put a PA building or garage in this or that location?’ ”
The maps and graphics will cover from Eighth Ave. over to 12th Ave., from W. 42nd to W. 33rd Sts. “We will describe what the land uses are there. There’s a lot of PA property there. We’re going to show the residential areas, the affordable housing,” Mackintosh noted.
“I think this bus terminal is one of the largest in the world in terms of people,” Mackintosh continued. “So you’re trying to put one of the biggest things in the world into the smallest footprint,” commented Berthet. “That’s where you have to think outside the box.”
There will be more community meetings (see below) to keep up the flow of information to residents and business owners, to sustain awareness and alertness, and to maintain a relationship between the community and the PA. This type of project, Berthet noted, “is going to be long, very expensive, very complicated, and you never quite know whether the right solution is going to emerge because politics become involved.”
Overall, Mackintosh and Berthet are optimistic. “I think the effort that we put forth in the spring was very effective,” Mackintosh said, adding, “The unification of our elected officials with CB4 was extraordinary. There wasn’t anyone marching to a different drummer. That’s pretty amazing, and then the fact that the PA shifted to a different process — it’s pretty miraculous.”
Said Berthet, “I agree, and that the electeds of New York and New Jersey are in the same room, that’s really unusual. Getting everybody in one room talking about a solution for both sides, to me, is very exciting and very big.”
IMPORTANT DATES FOR AWARENESS OF PA PLANS
West Side Tenants’ Conference: Sat., Nov. 19, 9:30 a.m.–4 p.m. at Fordham University School of Law (150 W. 62nd St., btw. Columbus & Amsterdam Aves.). A panel discussion will focus on the PA’s bus terminal expansion and CB4’s PA Working Group will present a preview of a slide show that will be more formally presented at a town hall-type meeting in December.
Hell’s Kitchen Community Meeting: Tues., Dec. 6, 6:30 p.m., at Metro Baptist Church (410 W. 40th St., btw. Ninth & 10th Aves.). CB4’s PA Working Group will present a slide show of the community and its issues, and discuss how to integrate community needs with the PA’s plans for an expanded bus terminal. People will be encouraged to express their priorities in small groups and by marking posters on the walls.
