Connecting 11 subway lines to PATH and ferry service, this transportation hub will provide the infrastructure necessary to attract businesses, workers and residents to Lower Manhattan, says Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In January 2004, Santiago Calatrava unveiled his initial design concept for the terminal. The transportation hub will be operational in 2009 and eventually will serve more than 80,000 daily PATH riders. The terminal will be a full-service regional transportation hub that will feature seamless pedestrian connections to existing and future transportation services such as ferries at the World Financial Center and Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway lines. The hub also will be able to accommodate future connections with other potential transportation infrastructure such as a proposed rail service to John F. Kennedy International Airport and Long Island.

Additional site preparation work also will be done through the remainder of 2005. Work on the terminal's east/west concourse and the excavation of the east side of the site for the Transit Hall is scheduled to begin in 2006. PATH service will not be interrupted during construction. In November 2003, the temporary PATH station at the WTC site opened, restoring a crucial rail connection between New York and New Jersey that was severed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In another transportation project, work has also begun on the first phase of the MTA's Fulton Transit Center. The $750-million federally funded plan will link 11 subways lines to the PATH and ferry service and create a grand concourse.