mastablasta wrote:
Just FYI...the fares for PATH increase to $2.75 on Wednesday. So, if you have a smartlink card, you should really max it now before the fares go up. I believe the maximum you can put on the card is 140 trips.

hero69 wrote:
PATH should be given to the MTA

WhoElseCouldIBe wrote:
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brewster wrote:
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vindication15 wrote:
Actually the original estimate in 08 was 2 billion.

The PA itself has said the building will not be profitable in the short and midterm.

The tower is a financial disaster at all levels abd we are paying for it in underinvestments in transportation and rising ticket fares. Anyone who thinks The freedom tower is a good investment probably can't even bathe themselves

Watch out for raining pig manure, V15 and I are in agreement!

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Last time I checked, plural means anything more than one.

Since couple refers to integers, I'm perfectly comfortable gently rounding 1.8 calling it a couple.

Your preference is duly noted. Still, more than one billion can be referred to as billions.

brewster wrote: Quote:

vindication15 wrote: Actually the original estimate in 08 was 2 billion. The PA itself has said the building will not be profitable in the short and midterm. The tower is a financial disaster at all levels abd we are paying for it in underinvestments in transportation and rising ticket fares. Anyone who thinks The freedom tower is a good investment probably can't even bathe themselves

Watch out for raining pig manure, V15 and I are in agreement! Quote:

Last time I checked, plural means anything more than one.

Since couple refers to integers, I'm perfectly comfortable gently rounding 1.8 calling it a couple.

vindication15 wrote:
Actually the original estimate in 08 was 2 billion.

The PA itself has said the building will not be profitable in the short and midterm.

The tower is a financial disaster at all levels abd we are paying for it in underinvestments in transportation and rising ticket fares. Anyone who thinks The freedom tower is a good investment probably can't even bathe themselves

Last time I checked, plural means anything more than one.

brewster wrote:
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oJcanuC wrote:
Only a fool would excuse Cuomo on the premise that "no one expects Cuomo to give a crap". NY is just as much affected by the PATH as NJ is. Similarly Newark airport is as affected as what goes on (or doesn't go on) at JFK. And it wasn't "billions" that went to the Skyway. It was $1.8 billion. And it wasn't inappropriately diverted. It was perfectly well diverted through appropriate channels. Stop with the hyperbole and stick with the facts.

Tee hee, "$1.8 billion is not "billions". Rationalize much? As for Cuomo it's simple really, Cuomo doesn't have voters who ride the PATH. So, no NY is not as affected. The economic effect of NJ workers is far too abstract for election politics.

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Dolomiti wrote:
PA obviously didn't have the option to just bow out of building the memorial and a new transit station.

Not obvious to me at all. They were simply the landlord of a site leased for 100 years. They could have sat back and let NYC and whoever else wanted to be part of it do it. The Calatrava Mall is a particular travesty and waste of money, aside from the inevitable big phallus we needed to wave at the world. A new PATH station could have been build for a fraction of that white elephant. None of this was assets that served the PA's stakeholders. The tower will NEVER be a cashflowing asset. The cost of security alone insures this. The whole "Ground Zero" venture was pure pillage.

ianmac47 wrote:
Ultimately the difference between investing in the World Trade Center and the Pulaski skyway is that the World Trade Center will generate money for the Port Authority.

Real estate investments and transportation have long been a mutual beneficial method of generating money. The federal government incentivized building a national rail network by offering land grants for railroads. They built the system and then profited from the land either by developing it or selling once it was connected to the network. Trolly companies would buy up land and develop a network, profiting not from the transportation but the real estate development that gain value from transportation that loses money.

The original WTC complex also generated passengers for the then near bankrupt Hudson Tubes that the Authority had become responsible for maintaining. That was during a time when nobody worried about crowding on the train.

There are plenty of things to be critical of the Port Authority for, but developing the WTC and the underground mall is not one of them. These are capital investments that will pay dividends, and help fund the agency in the future. The whole point of the agency is to act as a regional economic investor, collecting profits that are reinvested in the region (rather than collected as shareholder profits as in a private corporation). The problem has been in recent years, that governors on both sides of the river, of both parties, have funneled money into projects that are not capital investments -- items like the Pulaski Skyway are big ones, but there are plenty of smaller things as well.

oJcanuC wrote:
Only a fool would excuse Cuomo on the premise that "no one expects Cuomo to give a crap". NY is just as much affected by the PATH as NJ is. Similarly Newark airport is as affected as what goes on (or doesn't go on) at JFK. And it wasn't "billions" that went to the Skyway. It was $1.8 billion. And it wasn't inappropriately diverted. It was perfectly well diverted through appropriate channels. Stop with the hyperbole and stick with the facts.

Dolomiti wrote:
PA obviously didn't have the option to just bow out of building the memorial and a new transit station.

oJcanuC wrote:

Only a fool would excuse Cuomo on the premise that "no one expects Cuomo to give a crap". NY is just as much affected by the PATH as NJ is. Similarly Newark airport is as affected as what goes on (or doesn't go on) at JFK. And it wasn't "billions" that went to the Skyway. It was $1.8 billion. And it wasn't inappropriately diverted. It was perfectly well diverted through appropriate channels. Stop with the hyperbole and stick with the facts.

brewster wrote:
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Monroe wrote:
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JCMan8 wrote:
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Rorschach wrote:
The problem with the Port Authority, it's been a political patronage cesspool for decades. There is absolutely no accountability because the political leaders who appoint their cronies will not punish them.

I truly believe that Cuomo doesn't care because the system serves NJ and Christie doesn't care because he's a suburban Republican from West NJ.

Definitely this. I'll add that Christie is busy raising donations for national office. This is probably the last thing on his mind. The only way he'd care is if there were news articles discussing the abysmal failure of the PA on his watch, and I doubt that will happen.

Cuomo is out trying to score half a billion dollars from the NY State EPA by diverting 'clean water' money to fund the Tappan Zee Bridge-is that screwing up the PATH as well?

Putting the blame on Christie for PATH failures is stupid, unless you also want to have Cuomo share the blame equally, and both would be wrong anyway.

Difference is no one expects Cuomo to give a crap, but given how many citizens of his state commute using PATH and other transit, Christie should care about trans Hudson mass transit. But he's made clear he doesn't by diverting funds from transit to roads. Had the billions in PA cash diverted inappropriately to the Skyway been spent (as they should have) on the PATH upgrades, things would be different. The Skyway sure needed help, but not from the PA.

Yvonne wrote:
The Port Authority needs to get out of the real estate game and concentrate on transportation.

Monroe wrote:
I'm all for PA reform. It needs to be reined in. But don't forget Christie is dealing with an opposition party controlling the NJ Legislature, and he's had to deal with pension reform (not done), tenure reform, municipal tax caps, school funding (lucky JC tax payers get Christmas delivered 52 weeks a year to the tune of about 10 million a week from other NJ taxpayers), and the Obama economy. Plus prevailing wage laws enacted by Democrats that have depleted our Transportation Trust fund because it costs 8X the national average to pave a mile of highway. Not to mention funding school construction after the Democrats looted and wasted the 6 billion set aside for that with little results.

hero69 wrote:
just because past governors were neglioglent in dealing with the Port Authority is no reason for christie to continue the trend.

JCman24 wrote:
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Monroe wrote:
Silly children. You post in a Jersey City forum, and have no understanding how politics work in Hudson County and NYC and the Port Authority? The PA had agreed, pre Christie, to build the Freedom Tower-he was smart enough to ask for a quid pro quo. Where the F do you think the Pulaski Skyway leads to, anyway? Be happy it's only costing us half it would without the PA money. Otherwise, you're just another self hating NJ taxpayer who likes getting screwed by NY.

What did Corzine, McGreevey, Florio due to repair/upgrade mass transit infrastructure-but a once in a million year perfect storm hits NJ, and it's Christie's fault?

How much mouthwash do you go through?

Monroe wrote:
Silly children. You post in a Jersey City forum, and have no understanding how politics work in Hudson County and NYC and the Port Authority? The PA had agreed, pre Christie, to build the Freedom Tower-he was smart enough to ask for a quid pro quo. Where the F do you think the Pulaski Skyway leads to, anyway? Be happy it's only costing us half it would without the PA money. Otherwise, you're just another self hating NJ taxpayer who likes getting screwed by NY.

What did Corzine, McGreevey, Florio due to repair/upgrade mass transit infrastructure-but a once in a million year perfect storm hits NJ, and it's Christie's fault?