Tom Krosnowski

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May 9, 2025, 5:45 PM

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Updated

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Mass transit leaders, community advocates and political figures met Friday morning to discuss the future of transportation around New Jersey.

Topics included the New Jersey Turnpike expansion, the new Port Authority bus terminal and NJ Transit’s plan for the World Cup.

Advocates want to ensure that residents benefit just as much as those who commute or visit the region.

“Bayonne, Jersey City and Hoboken have grown tremendously over the past 10 years,” said Daniel Ortega, the community affairs manager for ELEC 825. “The opportunities are in the quality of life challenges that we have currently.”

Projects like the Turnpike expansion aim to alleviate congestion in those cities and on the way to New York. Port Authority officials detailed their massive new bus terminal across the Hudson that will replace the current one - the busiest in the country - by 2032.

“It reduces the need for buses to go onto city streets, where sometimes in the [evening] rush, they get stuck in traffic,” said David Torres, the senior project manager at Port Authority.

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“The bus terminal is going to be transformative,” said Zoe Baldwin, the vice president of the Regional Plan Association. “It’s the most near-term improvement to my mind that North Jersey commuters are going to feel immediately - more people get to the city taking the bus than they do the train.”

There’s something for train commuters, too - the long-awaited Gateway Project that will double the tracks from New Jersey into Manhattan.

“We’re playing catch-up a little,” Baldwin said. “And we have needed this trans-Hudson capacity since we built the first tunnels, and so we’re really excited that we have broken ground.”

Further west, crews continue to repair repeated sinkholes along I-80 that have closed a portion of the highway for months. DOT Commissioner Fran O’Connor provided a cost update.

“We applied for federal funds,” O’Connor said. “We’re probably going to cost anywhere from $25-$30 million just to fix this portion of it … Hopefully, we get the emergency funds and not use any portion of our federal funds.”

Two lanes are scheduled to reopen in about a week, with a full reopening on June 25.