To celebrate the 60th birthday of JFK Airport on July 25, the Port Authority will offer travelers free rides on the airport's monorail system, the AirTrain. A one-way ticket's normally $5.

Release below:

THE PORT AUTHORITY THANKS ITS CUSTOMERS

AS KENNEDY AIRPORT TURNS 60

Travelers Encouraged to Leave Their Cars Home Next Friday

and Take a Free Ride on AirTrain JFK

The Port Authority will provide free AirTrain JFK rides on Friday, July 25, as a thank you to customers who have helped make John F. Kennedy International Airport the country’s premier international gateway, and one of the world’s most venerable aviation facilities.  read more »

The Sun today reported on the high salaries of members of the executive chamber in the Paterson administration, noting that 62 of the 176 staffers in the executive chamber have a salary of at least $100,000.

Well, we have one to add outside the chamber that caught our eye: Drew Warshaw, the 27-year-old new chief of staff to Port Authority executive director Chris Ward, takes in $168,012 annually. The previous Port Authority director, Tony Shorris, didn't have anyone with the title of chief of staff, but his "special executive assistant," Andy Rachlin, took in $99,000 a year.

Mr. Warshaw served as an aide in the Spitzer administration, working with Rich Baum, secretary to the Governor.

With uncertainties abounding since last week’s acknowledgement that the World Trade Center redevelopment is behind schedule and overbudget, much talk at last night’s mega-Lower Manhattan community meeting centered around the site’s 8-acre memorial, referred to repeatedly as “the heart” of the project.

The meeting was designed to give the public a chance to talk with the major stakeholders in the redevelopment; attendees included State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Councilman David Yassky and State Senator Martin Connor. The memorial took center stage.

The memorial and interior museum was once slated for completion in 2009, but now the Port Authority said it will not be finished by the 10th anniversary of the attacks in September 2011.  read more »

Port Authority executive director Chris Ward today presented his candid review of the outstanding challenges at the World Trade Center site, tossing out the existing timetables and listing more than a dozen unresolved issues that could add delays.

Mr. Ward’s announcement, as expected, did not outline any specific dates but rather the new director pledged to come back in September with a revised plan for the site [see a PDF of the report here].

The biggest challenge for the agency is the PATH hub, a project budgeted at $2.5 billion with overruns. The project, which encompasses aspects unrelated to PATH such as retail and costly infrastructure for the broader World Trade Center site, is highly unlikely to fit within that budget.  read more »

The Port Authority is expected to deliver its report about World Trade Center timetables and budgets Monday, and the situation looks so grim that the agency appears as though it will throw out the existing dates without setting a new timetable, at least for now, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The Port Authority’s initial analysis found that the projects under the agency's control—the PATH hub, the memorial, the Freedom Tower—stand to be delivered years behind schedule and substantially over budget. The agency wants more time to do further analysis, and could set dates at a later time, people briefed on the matter said.  read more »

Governor Paterson today announced an audit of the schedules and budgets at the World Trade Center site, with his new Port Authority director Chris Ward due to report back by the end of June.

The review, announced two hours after the Port Authority acknowledged it is facing a two-month delay on the site for Tower 2, is already underway at the bi-state agency, as the Paterson administration seems eager to shed any blame for the unrealistic timetables set in the Pataki era.

From a letter from Mr. Paterson to Mr. Ward:

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site must encompass clear and achievable timelines and budget goals that must be met at every step of the way. Furthermore, the stakeholders and the public must be kept up to date on progress in meeting the timetables and budgets as we move forward.

 read more »

The Port Authority today acknowledged that it will be late in delivering a key portion of the World Trade Center site to developer Larry Silverstein, owing him millions in penalties.

The bi-state agency said it will take until August to turn over the site for Tower 2, a space being excavated that it is obligated to turn over by July 1. The Port Authority will owe Mr. Silverstein $300,000 a day for each day that the site is late, the same penalty it faced when it missed a Jan. 1 deadline for the site for Towers 3 and 4, eventually owing more than $12 million.

In a statement, the Port Authority noted that the agency will now not be paying an incentive of between $8 million and $14 million that it was prepared to pay its contractors had they finished on time.  read more »

Governor Paterson has nominated a former deputy mayor in the Koch administration, Stanley Grayson, to fill a slot on the Port Authority’s governing board.

Mr. Grayson, a onetime city finance commissioner and current president of M.R. Beal & Company, will take the slot of Bruce Blakeman, a Pataki administration appointee and former Republican candidate for state comptroller, according to a Port Authority spokeswoman.

Given his background—as deputy mayor, Mr. Grayson oversaw economic development and M.R. Beal is an investment firm—Mr. Grayson’s appointment seems a telling sign of the Port Authority’s evolving role as a bi-state agency. While its mission is centered around regional transportation, much of its focus recently has been devoted to economic development such as the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and perhaps assuming control of the Moynihan Station project.  read more »

In 2000, the Port Authority announced it would build a new, $37.4 million Battery Park ferry terminal to replace the “temporary” one installed in 1989, to transport 12,500 weekday commuters between New York and New Jersey, but September 11 thwarted the plan.

A lot of different Battery Park ferry terminal developments have happened in the past eight years, but the five-slip, upgraded terminal had yet to appear—until this weekend. A trio of tugboats will finally bring a permanent, “state-of-the-art,” terminal from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to the Battery Park City promenade on Saturday morning where final installation will begin, the Port Authority announced today.  read more »

The Port Authority has reached an agreement with the Chinese real estate firm Vantone to lease space in the Freedom Tower, a deal that, if completed, will mark the first major private sector lease for the tower.

Vantone agreed to take 190,000 square feet for a 22-year lease to make a “China Center,” starting at $80 a square foot.

However, there’s reason to keep the champagne corked for now. Developer Larry Silverstein broke off a lease deal in 7 World Trade Center with Vantone in 2006 when the firm failed to produce a letter of credit in a timely fashion. The firm then backed out of a lease deal at 195 Broadway.  read more »