The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency at
the heart of the scandal threatening Governor Chris Christie’s future, proposed
a $27.6 billion 10-year capital plan to pay for projects including a new
central terminal at LaGuardia Airport.
The authority’s capital-planning committee said today it wants
to allocate $8 billion to construction at the New York City area’s three major
airports, according to the plan. That includes $2.2 billion as part of a $3.6
billion redesign of LaGuardia’s 50-year-old terminal, voted America’s dirtiest
and most poorly designed by readers of Travel & Leisure magazine.
“Some of our airport terminals rate among the worst in the
country in terms of design and overall passenger experience,” said Port
Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye. “The need for the upgrade is
obvious.”
Last month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who
shares oversight of the agency with Christie, the Republican New Jersey
governor, said he would assume management of construction at New York City’s
airports to extricate the projects from what he called bureaucracy endemic to
the 93-year-old Port Authority. Long lines at ticket areas and a dearth of
concessions are among the deficiencies.
Traveler’s Limbo
Rebuilding LaGuardia’s central terminal has been in the
planning stages for 10 years, said Foye. It lacks free Wi-Fi and was ranked the
worst in the country for four straight years by a Zagat survey.
Plans call for construction of a 35-gate, 1.3
million-square-foot terminal with more restaurants and lounges, bigger gate
areas and improved passenger and baggage screening. Twenty new gates will open
to passengers in the fourth quarter of 2018, and the project will be completed
in 2021, according to preliminary plans.
People familiar with Cuomo’s plans said he decided to take a
more prominent role before the disclosure that Christie’s aides may have
engineered George Washington Bridge traffic jams as political payback for a
mayor who didn’t endorse Christie.
The agency is also planning a $1.5 billion extension of the
PATH subway from lower Manhattan to Newark Liberty International Airport and to
spend $1.2 billion on improvements there, including the redevelopment of
Terminal A.
The Global Gateway Alliance, a group lobbying for investments
in New York-area airports, said in a statement that it was pleased the Port
Authority was making them a priority.
“These investments are vital, but they also take years to
complete,” the group said.
Officials also proposed spending $1.2 billion to replace all
the George Washington Bridge’s 592 suspender ropes and $4.9 billion to complete
rebuilding of the World Trade Center site in Manhattan in the next two years.
“I view this as a turning point,” Foye said. “With the
completion of these commitments, the agency can once again focus its resources
on our airports, bridges, tunnels, ports.”
Source: Bloomberg
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