The world’s most expensive train station is opened in New York.  The station has been designed by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish-Swiss architect. The World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which is expected eventually to serve more than 200,000 commuters daily, is built next to the site of the Twin Towers, which were destroyed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

The building has become a major source of controversy — for its daring aesthetic, for spiraling drastically off budget and for closing seven years behind schedule. Initially budgeted at US$2 billion, it ended up costing US$3.85 billion. That would make it the most expensive station in the world.

The building has an elliptical shape, reaching for the sky like the wings of a bird. The space measures 107 metres long by 35 metres at its widest point. Calatrava thanked the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which commissioned the project and paid for the huge edifice with taxpayers’ dollars.

It said that when completed, the hub will serve 250,000 visitors or shoppers as well as more than 200,000 commuters each day, making it the third-largest transportation center in the city, behind Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station.