PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION TAKES CENTER STAGE AT NEW YORK CONFERENCE

This article gives an overview of the various public transit projects scheduled for New York City. It details a project by New Jersey Transit to construct a new rail connection from downtown Newark into a station in midtown Manhattan through a new two track tunnel under the Hudson River. The project, driven by capacity issues, is faced with numerous demanding challenges, such as selecting the alignment and type of tunnel construction, building a new station in New York City, maintaining a 1.9% vertical grade of the track, and establishing locations for emergency access and ventilation stations. Other transit expansion plans currently in design include the East Side Access project, the Second Avenue Subway Line, the No. 7 Line West Extension, the Fulton Street Transit Center, and the South Ferry Terminal. The article also details three underwater/wastewater tunnel projects for the region. In addition, a contains a sidebar indicating significant historic evens to the New York Subway which celebrated its 100 years anniversary in October 2004.