Schumer's plan for a lower Manhattan "Grand Central" - Transit Update - Senator Charles E. Schumer proposes rail terminal in lower Manhattan - Brief Article

Railway Age, July, 2002

Transit planning on a grand scale is easy. Finding the money to pay for it isn't. But U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer not only envisions a $5 billion rail terminal in lower Manhattan to replace a patchwork of 9/11-ravaged facilities--he also can identify most of the necessary funding. He did so on May 30, the day that officially marked the transition from recovery to reconstruction at Ground Zero. He detailed his plan in a speech to the Association for a Better New York.

"When Mitch Daniels, who's the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and I sat down to hammer out the deal for New York's $21.4 billion in federal funding, I insisted we set aside some of the funding for such a station," said Schumer. "As a result, there is $1.8 billion in the upcoming supplemental budget for the creation of a Grand Central for downtown. While building the station will be costly, between the $1.8 billion allocated specifically for the project, FEMA funds, insurance funds, potential Community Development Block Grant funds, and other funds, we can find the money to make it happen.

"In our agreement with the White House, there's a clause that allows us to use unspent FEMA dollars for other purposes, particularly transportation. Since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority have had the great foresight to insure themselves properly, the $3.1 billion component of the FEMA dollars that we thought we needed to rebuild the 1 and 9 [subway] and the PATH lines is not needed. These dollars can be used for the station, so we have about $5 billion to build a new station and make it accessible to other rail lines."