Patrick J. Foye became Executive Director of The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on November 1, 2011. Prior to joining the Port Authority, he served as Deputy Secretary for Economic Development for Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. Mr. Foye was a mergers and acquisitions partner at Skadden Arps and managing partner of the firm’s Brussels, Budapest and Moscow offices. He was Executive Vice President of AIMCO, a real estate investment trust and a component of the S&P 500, and served as President and CEO of the United Way of Long Island.
The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey conceives, builds, operates and maintains infrastructure critical to the New York/New Jersey region’s trade and transportation network. These facilities include America’s busiest airport system, marine terminals and ports, the PATH rail transit system, six tunnels and bridges between New York and New Jersey, the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, and the World Trade Center.
Smart Cities NYC ’17: Unleashing the Power of Governments
The premise of the Smart Cities Conference and initiative is to unleash the power of the local and state governments in the pursuit in innovative resolution of vexing issues across the nation. And I think the conference is a part of that dialogue. I think it’s very important.
Infra Innovation Across the Board
In the transportation field autonomous vehicles, autonomous trucks, platoon trucks, drones, I think, have the ability to literally transform the landscape. There’s innovation going on on the technology side, on the big data side, in construction and on the permitting and the financing side—including public-private partnerships, which I think are finally beginning to establish a foothold in the United States.
The Rail Resurgence
Interesting fact: two thirds of the people that used to travel between Washington and New York used to travel by the shuttle, by air, and a third by rail; and now the numbers are reversed: it’s two thirds by Amtrak or other regional rail and a third by air, and I think that speaks to the resurgence in rail. And I think also increasing numbers of travelers are interested in being responsible commuters, whether it’s a trip across the Hudson or a trip to Washington, and I think that influences their choice of commute and travel as well.
Huge Improvements Coming to the NYC Metro Area
Governor Cuomo is going to open the new Kosciuszko Bridge, the Port Authority is going to open the first lanes of the Goethals Bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey in the first half of this year. It’s being done as a public-private partnership. You can see the extraordinary progress on the Tappan-Zee Bridge…You can look at our web cam on our web site and the lower level of the Bayonne Bridge, which is being demolished to allow larger container ships to enter the harbor, that lower level is rapidly disappearing.
Download full transcript (PDF): Patrick Foye on The Infra Blog
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