Port Authority Bus Terminal
The Port Authority Bus Terminal is a bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal 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.
The terminal is located in Midtown Manhattan 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 Port Authority of New York and New Jersey ; the other two are George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Upper Manhattan and Journal Square Transportation Center in Jersey City.
PABT serves as a terminus and departure point for commuter routes as well as for long-distance intercity bus service and is a major transit hub for residents of New Jersey. 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.
Opened in 1950, the terminal was built to consolidate several 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; as such, buses must either use local streets and parking lots or deadhead through the tunnel. 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. After considering several plans to relocate the terminal, the PANYNJ released plans in 2021 to reconstruct the terminal on the same site, with layover facilities.
History
Before 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 Dixie Hotel, opened in 1930 and operated until 1959.The Baltimore and 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 Port Authority Bus Terminal until May 1963, at which time all long-distance bus service to the city was consolidated at the terminal.
Development
Planning
The Lincoln Tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey 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 they caused congestion. A large bus terminal near the mouth of the 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, but New York Supreme Court Justice John E. McGeehan blocked La Guardia's proposed bus ban on the grounds that it was unreasonable.In July 1940, at the request of New York City mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, the Port of New York 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, adjacent to the McGraw-Hill Building on land owned by the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. According to projections at the time, the $4 million terminal could be completed within 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.
Plans for a bus terminal were delayed because of World War II, which diverted resources from 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 of New York 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 was already planning on expanding its then terminal near Penn Station. Greyhound initially opposed the terminal but withdrew its opposition in late 1947.
Construction
The New York City Board of Estimate approved the construction of the new terminal in January 1947. The terminal 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. The Port of New York Authority began acquiring land for the terminal two months later. To finance the terminal's construction, the agency issued $16.3 million in bonds in July 1947. Plans for the structural design were revised substantially in March 1948, when the Port of New York Authority added a 500-spot parking lot on 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 agency began relocating the first of 450 displaced families in November 1948.Walter McQuade designed the terminal, with Vincent Marchesani as the assistant architect. The Port of New York Authority hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the terminal on January 27, 1949, at which point half of the site had been cleared. At the same time, the agency began soliciting bids from concessionaires for the terminal's 50 stores. By the middle of the year, the agency had received 500 bids from concessionaires. The first steel beams for the new bus terminal were installed in November 1949, and Turner Construction received a contract the next month to build the terminal's superstructure for approximately $9.2 million. The steel framework for the new terminal topped out during March 1950. The terminal's construction was delayed slightly by a labor strike in the middle of that year. Despite this, the terminal was substantially complete by November 1, 1950. The project had employed 1,055 men and used 1.53 million bricks and of concrete.
Original terminal
The original Mid-Manhattan Bus Terminal, built in the International Style, was opened on December 15, 1950. The four-story terminal measured and was tall, with a 500-space parking lot and 50 stores. The ground level contained 40 slips for long-haul buses, as well as an auxiliary platform with space for 15 more buses. The second level was the main concourse and contained ticket offices, waiting rooms, baggage check, restaurants, shops, a 300-seat newsreel theater, and escalators to other levels. The third story was the suburban concourse, which was divided into three sections and contained 72 loading slips and 15 unloading slips. The fourth story was for short-haul buses. A system of pipes was embedded into the reinforced-concrete ramps leading to the terminal, keeping the ramps free of ice. The Port of New York Authority had also proposed a heliport on the roof during the terminal's construction, and the agency had authorized the construction of a ramp to the 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue subway station just before the terminal opened.During its first year, the Port Authority Bus Terminal accommodated 40 million passengers; the terminal's construction was credited with diverting 5,000 buses per day from street-level bus stops. The terminal had replaced a series of coffee shops frequented by the elderly; after the coffee shops had been demolished, patrons of these establishments began meeting at the terminal instead. The terminal's rooftop garage was initially mostly empty, prompting the garage's operators to allow trucks to park there. By mid-1951, the garage was frequently fully occupied and was profitable. In the terminal's early years, the Port of New York Authority constantly cleaned the terminal, scrubbing the floor every night. Despite the large numbers of passengers who used the terminal, it recorded a net loss during its first five years, in part due to high operating expenses, debt charges, and interest costs.
Expansions and modifications
First expansion
In September 1959, the Port of New York Authority announced that it would spend $19 million to increase the bus terminal's capacity by 50 percent. The plans involved converting the existing parking lot atop the building with 25 spaces for long-haul buses and 32 spaces for short-haul buses. In addition, a 1,000-space parking lot would be built above the existing roof. That December, the Port of New York Authority approved $24 million for the expansion of the terminal and for the widening of several ramps leading from the terminal to the Lincoln Tunnel. Construction of the expansion took place during off-peak hours to minimize disruptions to bus service. As part of an experiment in 1960, the Port of New York Authority installed a canopy above one of the loading slips to shield commuters from buses' emissions. The first of 30 "legs" supporting the new parking lot were installed in November 1960, and the existing parking lot was closed the following March.The expansion topped out in June 1961, and a bridge connecting the expanded terminal with the Lincoln Tunnel was installed two months later. The Port of New York Authority sold $25 million in bonds for the expansions of the Port Authority Bus Terminal and George Washington Bridge in January 1962. The new ramps to the Lincoln Tunnel were finished the next month. The first 300 spaces in the new parking lot opened in April 1962, and the rest of the parking lot was opened in stages over the next two months. The new loading slips were opened in several stages and were in full operation by April 1963.