Trans-Hudson bus commuters received some promising news about the outdated Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) Wednesday: the Port Authority’s Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution officially reallocating $90 million from its current 10-year Capital Program to a (nonspecific) plan for improvements under the working title “Quality of Commute.” A detailed plan on how the Port Authority will spend that money is slated to be presented at the September 17 Board meeting.

Port Authority Board of Commissioners Vice Chair Scott Rechler called the PABT “obsolete in every way you can imagine” and expressed concern that none of the commissioners had made the PABT a top priority while the most recent 10- year capital program was being developed.

“I was a little dismayed that we spent two years going through this capital plan and getting input from all the commissioners who were taking feedback from the community and it didn’t reach that level, and I’m not exactly sure why,” Rechler said at Wednesday’s meeting.

Perhaps he forgot about the February 19 meeting which he oversaw, and which would have provided the perfect opportunity to address the needed improvements to the PABT. It was at that meeting where PANYNJ Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth McCarthy said it was “premature” to put any funds for the PABT in the capital program, and that nothing would be done regarding building a new bus garage until a $5.5 million study was complete.

With 225,000 bus passengers coming through every day, the PABT is the busiest bus terminal in the country. One would hope the Port Authority Board of Commissioners would have their finger on the pulse of such an operation at all times. But apparently it took a recent site visit by newly-appointed PANYNJ Chairman John Degnan to act on the bus terminal’s deplorable conditions.

Perhaps it has something to do with real life experience of the PANYNJ’s 11 Commissioners, none of whom have any professional experience in the transportation sector. This may prove to be an ongoing challenge for the bi-state agency, whose focus is “conceiving, building, operating and maintaining infrastructure critical to the New York/New Jersey region’s trade and transportation network.”