Port Authority Bus Terminal

The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is a bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal in the world by volume of traffic, serving about 8,000 buses and 225,000 people on an average weekday and more than 65 million people a year.

The terminal is located in Midtown Manhattan at 625 Eighth Avenue between 40th Street and 42nd Street, one block east of the Lincoln Tunnel and one block west of Times Square. It is one of three bus terminals operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ); the other two are George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Upper Manhattan and Journal Square Transportation Center in Jersey City.

PABT serves as a terminus and departure point for commuter routes as well as for long-distance intercity bus service and is a major transit hub for residents of New Jersey. It has 223 departure gates and 1,250 car parking spaces, as well as commercial and retail space. In 2011, there were more than 2.263 million bus departures from the terminal.

Opened in 1950, the terminal was built to consolidate several private terminals spread across Midtown Manhattan. A second wing, extending to 42nd Street, was added in 1979. Since then, the terminal has reached peak hour capacity, leading to congestion and overflow on local streets. It does not allow for layover parking; as such, buses must either use local streets and parking lots or deadhead through the tunnel. PANYNJ has been unsuccessful in its attempts to expand passenger facilities through public private partnership, and in 2011 it delayed construction of a bus depot annex, citing budgetary constraints. After considering several plans to relocate the terminal, the PANYNJ released plans in 2021 to reconstruct the terminal on the same site, with layover facilities.

Before PABT was constructed, there were several terminals scattered throughout Midtown Manhattan, some of which were part of hotels. The Federal Writers' Project's 1940 publication of New York: A Guide to the Empire State lists the All American Bus Depot on West 42nd, the Consolidated Bus Terminal on West 41st, and the Hotel Astor Bus Terminal on West 45th. The Dixie Bus Center on 42nd Street, located on the ground floor of the Dixie Hotel, opened in 1930 and operated until 1959.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had coach service aboard a ferry to Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City that ran from an elegant bus terminal with a revolving bus platform in the Chanin Building at 42nd and Lexington. Greyhound Lines had its own facility adjacent to Pennsylvania Station and did not move into the Port Authority Bus Terminal until May 1963, at which time all long-distance bus service to the city was consolidated at the terminal.

The Lincoln Tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey opened in 1937. Within a year and a half of the tunnel's opening, five companies were operating 600 interstate bus trips through the tunnel every day. The city opposed letting buses go through Midtown Manhattan because they caused congestion. A large bus terminal near the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel was first mandated in December 1939, after the city announced that it would ban commuter buses from driving into congested parts of Midtown. The ban was supposed to go into effect in January 1941, but New York Supreme Court Justice John E. McGeehan blocked La Guardia's proposed bus ban on the grounds that it was unreasonable.

In July 1940, at the request of New York City mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, the Port of New York Authority started conducting a survey into the causes and effects of intercity and commuter bus traffic in Manhattan. That December, Times Square Terminal Inc. filed an application to build and operate a commuter bus terminal from 41st to 42nd Streets between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, adjacent to the McGraw-Hill Building on land owned by the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. According to projections at the time, the $4 million terminal could be completed within nine months. Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs proposed building a short $600,000 tube between the Lincoln Tunnel and the new terminal. The city approved the construction of the new terminal and connecting tunnel in January 1941.