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Posted Nov 12, 2014, 8:31 AM
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Join Date: Apr 2013
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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
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."
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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.
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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."
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