Why the Port Authority Bus Terminal Is Crumbling, Crowded, Unloved

The Port Authority Bus terminal is overtaxed, with 7,500 buses arriving and departing each day, circling the terminal waiting for gates, clogging the streets, spewing pollution. The terminal building has been stagnating even as ridership has been rising: a third of all New Jersey commuters pass through it every day. WNYC transportation reporter Jim O'Grady discusses the problems with the terminal building, which opened in 1950 and expanded in the 1970s, but since then has lost hundreds of millions of dollars, in part by subsidizing NJ transit with artificially low gate fees. The Port Authority once had plans to lessen the crowding by building a bigger terminal, but Governor Christie's administration have funded other projects instead, such as extending the PATH train to Newark Airport and rebuilding the Pulaski Skyway.