Ward: Region Must Think 30 Years Ahead

NEW YORK CITY-The New York City region may “choke on its own growth” within 30 years if its infrastructure capacity does not keep pace with that growth, said the head of the Port Authority at a breakfast forum here Friday.

“What are we doing with the network that we’ve built so far, and more importantly, what are we going to do with it in the future?” asked Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in a presentation before the New York Building Congress. With the region expected to add 2.2 million residents by the year 2040, he said, careful planning is necessary to anticipate and accommodate the region’s highway, air, rail and shipping traffic 30 years hence.

Among the examples Ward gave was that of the George Washington Bridge, which he said “really has no off-peak period” today. The bridge linking upper Manhattan to Fort Lee, NJ also illustrated a couple of other points: the region’s planners in the 1920s wisely anticipated heavier use in the future, moving it from its originally projected location in Midtown; and its steel-truss design was a cost-saving compromise on the massive stone-masonry construction intended by architect Cass Gilbert.