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American Morning

N.Y. Officials Announce Multi-Billion Dollar Transportation Project

Aired August 13, 2002 - 05:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We're less than a month away from the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. An important part of New York's rebuilding effort will go on underground. Officials have announced a multi-billion dollar transportation project.
Our Hillary Lane has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY LANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These tunnels once carried 70,000 commuters a day from New Jersey to New York. This was one of the 14 subway lines that moved hundreds of thousands more workers and tourists from within the city to downtown. They will come back, local and federal agencies believe, if government rebuilds the network to bring them.

MICHAEL BROWN, FEMA DEPUTY DIRECTOR: You figure out what is best for you and we're going to fund that for you.

LANE: The Federal Emergency Management Agency announcing $4.5 billion in aid and easing restrictions, allowing New York to spend the money not just replacing the tangled lines that once existed, but bringing them together in one grand state of the art transit hub.

(on camera): So even though there's major debate about how the site will be redeveloped and especially what will be built above the ground, this funding is a major breakthrough in pushing things forward down below.

GOV. GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK: We will put in place 21st century ferry service and bus service and allow the upgrading of outdated, 100-year-old infrastructure.

LANE (voice-over): On a scale which hasn't been seen in nearly a century, since the development of New York's palatial Grand Central Terminal and the sprawling Union Station in Washington, D.C. Architect Frederic Schwartz, a specialist in public architecture, says the opportunity is monumental.

FREDERIC SCHWARTZ, ARCHITECTURE LEAGUE OF NEW YORK: It's the chance to besides repair go further. It's the chance to make a seamless, comfortable journey for anybody in the outlying region. So you should think of this regional and not just in the site.

LANE: But Schwartz and others say the transit design will need to work with a memorial at ground zero.

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: Nothing we're announcing or doing today in any way undermines or defers the important decisions about the memorial.

LANE: A huge challenge ahead. Movement will come one careful step at a time. But now there's a new light at the end of the tunnel.

Hillary Lane for CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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