Location
New York, New York
Date
13 Apr 2004 - 17 Apr 2004
Abstract
When the World Trade Center was destroyed the transit link connecting Lower Manhattan and New Jersey, the Port Authority’s Trans Hudson system or PATH, was cut. The PATH station, which was located beneath the WTC, was destroyed, the two tunnels under the Hudson River were flooded, and the first PATH station in New Jersey was rendered useless for train movements. Immediately after Sept 11, the re-establishment of the downtown PATH service was identified as a key element in the revitalization of Lower Manhattan. The re-establishment of PATH service required that three elements of major construction be completed. These were the construction of a new temporary PATH station in the basement of the old WTC, the complete refurbishment of the Hudson River tunnels, and creation of a temporary terminal station at Exchange Place. The new WTC PATH station is founded on footings on bedrock, while the connecting pedestrian corridors are founded on the caissons that originally supported the WTC Plaza. The reconstruction of the PATH river tunnels required the complete gutting of the tunnels to remove all the electrical systems, duct banks, and track bed, which were 100 years old. The electrical and signal systems were replaced with modern systems and the original timber tie and ballast track bed was replaced with a direct fixation rail system. In order to reconfigure the Exchange Place station into a terminal station a system of track crossovers was mined through rock on the west side of the station. The tight 18-month schedule hinged on the new tunnel lining design. The schedule would not permit construction of traditional cast-in-place concrete linings. The Port Authority selected a more rapid construction option for the final lining, fiber-reinforced, sprayed-on-concrete. To maintain schedule, traditional drill and blast mining methods were abandoned and mechanical roadheaders were used to excavate the bulk of the rock removal.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2004 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Sandiford, Raymond E.; Leifer, Samuel; and McNeilly, Mark, "Restoration of PATH Service to Lower Manhattan" (2004). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 6.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/5icchge/session00g/6
Restoration of PATH Service to Lower Manhattan
New York, New York
When the World Trade Center was destroyed the transit link connecting Lower Manhattan and New Jersey, the Port Authority’s Trans Hudson system or PATH, was cut. The PATH station, which was located beneath the WTC, was destroyed, the two tunnels under the Hudson River were flooded, and the first PATH station in New Jersey was rendered useless for train movements. Immediately after Sept 11, the re-establishment of the downtown PATH service was identified as a key element in the revitalization of Lower Manhattan. The re-establishment of PATH service required that three elements of major construction be completed. These were the construction of a new temporary PATH station in the basement of the old WTC, the complete refurbishment of the Hudson River tunnels, and creation of a temporary terminal station at Exchange Place. The new WTC PATH station is founded on footings on bedrock, while the connecting pedestrian corridors are founded on the caissons that originally supported the WTC Plaza. The reconstruction of the PATH river tunnels required the complete gutting of the tunnels to remove all the electrical systems, duct banks, and track bed, which were 100 years old. The electrical and signal systems were replaced with modern systems and the original timber tie and ballast track bed was replaced with a direct fixation rail system. In order to reconfigure the Exchange Place station into a terminal station a system of track crossovers was mined through rock on the west side of the station. The tight 18-month schedule hinged on the new tunnel lining design. The schedule would not permit construction of traditional cast-in-place concrete linings. The Port Authority selected a more rapid construction option for the final lining, fiber-reinforced, sprayed-on-concrete. To maintain schedule, traditional drill and blast mining methods were abandoned and mechanical roadheaders were used to excavate the bulk of the rock removal.
