Why does it cost $1.5 billion to extend the PATH a short distance along an existing right of way?

I am curious. The cost just seem astounding to me.

NEW YORK ? Port Authority of New York and New Jersey unveiled a long-awaited 10-year capital plan that amounts to $27.6 billion in projects, including a $1.5 billion dollar extension of the PATH system from Newark Penn Station to Newark Liberty International Airport.

The capital plan is essentially a list of projects that the agency intends to begin, continue or finish within a given period, including projects' projected costs and funding sources.

The plan includes a total of $12.6 billion in ?state of good repair? projects intended to maintain exisiting facilities. Plus, $11 billion in major new projects.

The plan, which Port Authority Vice Chairman Scott Rechler referred to as ?a 10 year blueprint,? calls for a total of $7.9 billion worth of projects involving the agency?s bridges and tunnels including raising the Bayonne Bridge and replacing the Goethels Bridge and the George Washington Bridge suspender ropes, as well as building a new Lincoln Tunnel helix.

The plan also calls for $1.6 billion in port improvements and billions in airport projects, which will include replacement of terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport.

The plan also calls for continued redevelopment of the World Trade Center site to the tune of $4.9 billion over the next five years. The estimated total cost of the trade center project is upwards of $13 billion.

This morning?s presentation during a meeting of the Port Authority?s capital planning committee at the agency?s New York headquarters provided few details of the PATH airport extension project, one that mass transit and air travel advocates have long called for.

Another $400 million in PATH projects in the plan include a new Harrison station and a revamped Grove Street station in Jersey City, which will feature 10-car platforms and handicap access.

Port Authority staffers assured commissioners on the committee that the agency would conduct quarterly financial reviews to ensure the agency?s revenues were sufficient to pay for the plan and that individual projects within it would each have to be approved by the full board of commissioners.

The plan could be adopted by the board at its next regular meeting on February 19, when the agency could also adopt a 2014 operating budget as well as an annual capital budget for the year.

What was presented this morning stems from a re-evaluation of a prior 10-year, $25 billion capital plan that prompted the agency to raise tolls on its four bridges and two tunnels linking the two states in 2011.

The capital plan has been highly anticipated by planners and policy makers concerned about the region's future, contractors and labor unions eager for the work it will provide, and watchdogs and advocacy groups monitoring Port Authority spending.

In July, the Manhattan-based Citizens Budget Commission, a non-profit group, criticized the Port Authority for failing to introduce an annual capital budget for 2013, and called on the agency to produce a 10- to 20-year overall financial plan.

The AAA clubs of New York and North Jersey have joined in a lawsuit to overturn a 2011 Port Authority toll hike, asserting that the agency improperly uses toll revenues to finance non-transportation related projects including redevelopment of the World Trade Center. In the absence of a formal capital plan, AAA has sought detailed spending data from the agency as part of the suit.

At the time, Port Authority officials said the agency needed the the toll hike for extra cash to fund a long list of pressing projects after suffering years of recession-related revenue declines.

Port Authority lawyers have denied AAA's assertion in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, essentially arguing that the bridge, tunnel and PATH facilities, known collectively as the Interstate Transportation Network, or ITN, runs an annual deficit and therefor cannot possibly subsidize any other agency operations.

Customarily, the agency has adopted an annual capital budget each year to accompany its yearly operating budget. But the agency failed to adopt a capital plan for 2013 when it approved its $2.58 billion operating budget for the year, and never introduced one after that.

Beset this winter by investigations into September's closure of local access lanes in Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge, the Port Authority has yet to adopt a 2014 operating budget

This should have been done long ago. The Rip Van Winkle of the PA has decided this is an important link. Unfortunately it may take them another decade for this to come true.

Port Authority plans to extend PATH to Newark airport

The Port Authority plans to extend the PATH train line to Newark Liberty International Airport over the next decade, a $1.5 billion project that would provide the first one-seat ride from lower Manhattan to New Jersey's major airport, officials said Tuesday.

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