(The Associated Press distributed the following article by Amy Westfeldt on December 3.)
NEW YORK — The federal government delivered nearly $3 billion Wednesday to help build a permanent transit center underneath the World Trade Center site and two downtown subway terminals, money it had promised to upgrade transit systems crippled after Sept. 11.
“New York City is back on track,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta declared inside a temporary commuter rail station that opened 10 days ago at the trade center site.
The $2.85 billion, which transit officials said will be available by Friday, is the first of the $4.55 billion promised for post-Sept. 11 transit improvements to be distributed.
“This is part of a master plan for transit redevelopment and renewal in lower Manhattan,” said Gov. George Pataki, who attended Mineta’s announcement with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Peter Kalikow.
About $1.7 billion will help fund a permanent terminal for PATH commuter trains underneath the trade center site, that will also connect pedestrians to the World Financial Center, its ferry terminal, and at least 12 subway lines.
The permanent hub is scheduled to open in 2006. On Nov. 23, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey opened a temporary PATH station to commuters at the trade center site for the first time since the attacks. About 20,000 commuters used the station on its first weekday.
The MTA will use $750 million to renovate its Fulton Street Transit Center, about a block away. Transit officials want to ease congestion in the terminal that connects nine subway lines and add a walkway to three additional subway lines.
Construction is scheduled to begin on Fulton Street the end of 2004, and it should be completed in 2007, MTA officials said.
An additional $400 million will rebuild the MTA’s South Ferry terminal in Battery Park. The terminal, which shut down after the 2001 attacks, will be changed from a single-track, five-car station to three tracks and two platforms, with connections to the Staten Island ferry terminal.