An Authority in Action. An Account of the Port of New York Authority and Its Recent Activities

Abstract

The following is a discussion of the New York Port Authority's most recent contributions in coping with the complex terminal and transportation problems which beset the huge metropolitan area which it serves. It covers, first, the Port Authority's creation; second, its organizational and financial structure; third, the means by which it is subject to popular control; and finally, recent Port Authority endeavors which dramatize the agency's dynamic character. Before commencing this discussion, I should like to point out that the Port Authority is currently operating twenty-two terminal and transportation facilities in the metropolitan area of New York and northern New Jersey, an area composed of over I3,000,000 people residing in more than 360 separate and distinct communities, embracing 220 municipalities. Port Authority facilities represent a net capital investment of over one billion dollars. They consist of four bridges and two tunnels between the States of New York and New Jersey, four airports, and two heliports, six marine terminals, three inland freight terminals, a grain terminal and a bus terminal. In addition, the Port Authority maintains nine regional trade development offices in the United States and overseas, appears continuously before Congress and federal agencies on matters of concern to the commerce of the Port and makes periodic studies of ways to improve that commerce, including the feasibility of providing additional terminal and transportation facilities.'