London Improves On Waste Diversion

Coordinating construction of a $2.2 billion transit center in a crowded urban environment would present hardship under most circumstances, but the task of building the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, set to open in 2009, defies even conventional standards.

The project faces exacting space constraints; complicated logistics that include keeping subway service in operation; intense public scrutiny of its design and progress; and one of the world's busiest construction sites, with work on the 2.6-million-sq-ft Freedom Tower, a chiller plant, and the Sept. 11 memorial - as well as three new office towers on the way.

"We have to work closely with all of the stakeholders on a day-to-day basis to reach a consensus on a range of construction issues," says Steve Plate, director of the Priority Capital Programs Department for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center site and will operate the hub.

The new facility, designed by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish architect, will offer passengers from the Port Authority's PATH transit system an easy transfer point via underground passageways to the subway system operated by New York City Transit. The PATH, which ferries passengers 24 hours a day between various stations in New Jersey and Manhattan, currently uses a temporary station that opened at the World Trade Center in 2003 after the original station was destroyed in the terrorist attacks.