![]() One of the secrets to the Port Authority’s historic success is that the revenues of all these facilities are pooled-with the cash flow from bridges and tunnels serving to bolster the early financing of the port, new bridges and tunnels, and later the airports. Many other facilities and programs, small and large, round out the Port Authority’s portfolio. In exchange the PA was required to purchase and maintain the bankrupt H&M, which became known as PATH. And, when the PA wanted to develop what became the World Trade Center-to generate revenues for the rest of the enterprise-a deal was made between New York and New Jersey that gave the PA the rights to build on the land occupied by H&M Railroad’s (H&M) Hudson Terminal. Teterboro Airport, the ports of Newark and Elizabeth, the Brooklyn waterfront piers and the bus terminals were added in the 1950s. ![]() After the WWII, the cities of Newark and New York agreed to lease their airfields to the PA. Over the years, the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and three other interstate crossings were added. ![]() The new authority’s purpose was to operate the Hudson River ports and, ultimately to develop and modernize the entire port district. The compact creating the Port of New York Authority recognized that the Hudson River was an artificial divider of a single regional economy that extended into both states. In 1921, the United States Congress approved an interstate compact signed by the states of New York and New Jersey. To understand how we got here, a little history may be worthwhile. While politicization of the PA exacerbates the problems, now may be the time the two states need to recognize that the organization has outlived its useful life and needs to be restructured and maybe even dismantled. The issues we have all been reading about are a reflection of the organizational and financial structure of the PA. Instead, today’s port authority (PA) has become the punch line of a bad joke. There once was a time when the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PANYNJ) had an international reputation as “the gold standard” of public enterprises for its independent professional staff, its facility management capabilities, and for the farsightedness of its investments in promoting the New York/New Jersey region. Certainly, some of them have the good fortune to be able to operate largely as apolitical, professional organisms. With the right kind of culture and leadership, they may well avoid slow declines into a maintenance mode, or worse, get diverted to a point where structures that were once unmatchable assets may become affirmative liabilities. They come into being to serve a public purpose: to undertake and/or finance public enterprises that other general governmental entities can not or do not want to do, and/or to insulate the elected leadership from any negative consequences. Like living organisms, public authorities seem to have a finite life cycle.
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