NY -- NYC -- Port Authority Bus Terminal (625 Eighth Avenue):
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- Wikipedia Description: Port Authority Bus Terminal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is the main gateway for interstate buses into Manhattan in New York City. It is owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). The bus terminal is located in Midtown at 625 Eighth Avenue between 40th Street and 42nd Street, one block east of the Lincoln Tunnel and one block west of Times Square. It is one of three bus terminals operated by the PANYNJ, the others being the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Upper Manhattan and the Journal Square Transportation Center in Jersey City.
The PABT serves as a terminus and departure point for commuter routes, as well as for long-distance intercity routes, and is a major transit hub for New Jerseyans. The terminal is the largest in the United States and the busiest in the world by volume of traffic, serving about 8,000 buses and 225,000 people on an average weekday and more than 65 million people a year. It has 223 departure gates and 1,250 car parking spaces, as well as commercial and retail space. In 2011, there were more than 2.263 million bus departures from the terminal.
The PABT, opened in 1950 between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 40th and 41st Streets, was built to consolidate the many different private terminals spread across Midtown Manhattan. A second wing, extending to 42nd Street, was added in 1979. Since then, the terminal has reached peak hour capacity, leading to congestion and overflow on local streets. It does not allow for layover parking; hence, buses are required to use local streets or lots, or return through the tunnel empty. The PANYNJ has been unsuccessful in its attempts to expand passenger facilities through public private partnership, and in 2011 it delayed construction of a bus depot annex, citing budgetary constraints. In June 2013, it commissioned an 18-month study that would consider options for reconfiguration, expansion, and replacement of the terminal.
History
Site
Before the PABT was constructed, there were several terminals scattered throughout Midtown Manhattan, some of which were part of hotels. The Federal Writers Project's 1940 publication of New York: A Guide to the Empire State lists the All American Bus Depot on West 42nd, the Consolidated Bus Terminal on West 41st, and the Hotel Astor Bus Terminal on West 45th. The Dixie Bus Center on 42nd Street, located on the ground floor of the hotel of the same name, opened in 1930 and operated until 1959. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had coach service aboard a ferry to Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City that ran from an elegant bus terminal with a revolving bus platform in the Chanin Building at 42nd and Lexington. Greyhound Lines had its own facility adjacent to Pennsylvania Station and did not move into the PABT until 1963, at which time all long-distance bus service to the city was consolidated at the terminal.
The Lincoln Tunnel from Manhattan to New Jersey had opened in 1937. Within a year and a half of the tunnel's opening, five companies were operating 600 interstate bus trips through the tunnel every day. The city opposed letting buses go through Midtown Manhattan because the buses caused congestion. A large bus terminal near the mouth of Lincoln Tunnel was first mandated in December 1939, after the city announced that it would ban commuter buses from driving into congested parts of Midtown. The ban was supposed to go into effect in January 1941. In July 1940, at the request of New York City mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, the Port Authority started conducting a survey into the causes and effects of intercity and commuter bus traffic in Manhattan. That December, Times Square Terminal Inc. filed an application to build and operate a commuter bus terminal from 41st to 42nd Streets between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. It was said that the $4 million terminal could be built in nine months. Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs proposed building a short $600,000 tube between the Lincoln Tunnel and the new terminal. The city approved the construction of the new terminal and connecting tunnel in January 1941. Meanwhile, New York Supreme Court Justice John E. McGeehan blocked La Guardia's proposed bus ban on the grounds that it was unreasonable.
Plans for a bus terminal were delayed because of World War II, which used the resources intended for most projects that were not directly involved in the war effort. In June 1944, the New York state government allocated $180,000 to the Port Authority for studying the feasibility of constructing a bus terminal in Midtown Manhattan. Early the next year, plans for a mid-Manhattan bus terminal were presented to the different bus companies. While most major bus lines agreed to the plan, Greyhound did not, for it was already planning on expanding its then terminal near Penn Station.
The New York City Board of Estimate approved the construction of the new terminal in January 1947. It was to be built one block south of the aborted Times Square Terminal Inc. site, on the block bounded by 40th and 41st Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Plans for the structural design were revised substantially in March 1948, when the Port Authority added a 500-spot parking lot for cars atop the terminal's roof, to be accessed via a series of ramps. The last industrial tenant on the future terminal's site moved away the following month, and the Port Authority hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the terminal in January 1949.
Original construction and additions
The original Mid-Manhattan Bus Terminal (now the PABT's South Wing), built in the International Style, was opened on December 15, 1950, as a generic "Port Authority bus terminal". A vertical addition of three parking levels, able to accommodate 1,000 cars, was completed in 1963. In 2007, the South Wing underwent a seismic retrofit in a $52 million building code-compliance project to reinforce and stabilize it against earthquakes.
Plans to expand the bus station to 42nd Street were floated as early as 1965. The North Wing was opened in 1979. This expansion increased capacity by 50 percent, and created a new façade comprising 27 steel X-shaped trusses. Assessing this façade design, Virtualtourist listed the PABT in 2008 as one of the "World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments".
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the area in and around the PABT was considered dangerous by police, tourists, and commuters due to high crime, prostitution, vagrant behavior, and inadequate upkeep and law enforcement in the building and nearby Times Square, especially after dark, but this is no longer the case. During 1997, the terminal was the subject of a study, coordinated by Professor Marcus Felson of Rutgers University, which identified strategic changes to the building's design and area supervision with a view to reducing crime and other problems.
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