State Gives Up
Plan for Tunnel
At Ground Zero

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

A longstanding but controversial plan to rebuild West Street-Route 9A as a tunnel alongside the World Trade Center memorial and Freedom Tower sites has been given up by New York State officials.

Taking into account many objections — including protests by Verizon and Goldman, Sachs & Company, which planned to build a new headquarters on West Street — the state's Department of Transportation will recommend rebuilding the highway as an eight-lane boulevard at the same grade as surrounding streets.

It is too early to say whether the abandonment of the tunnel will affect Goldman's decision, disclosed nine days ago, to suspend negotiations on the West Street parcel and look for a site elsewhere in Manhattan. A company spokesman declined to comment yesterday.

But by embracing a surface boulevard, state officials may have broken one of the bigger logjams in the reconstruction of the trade center site. The at-grade plan will cost about $700 million less than a tunnel, will take less time to build and will cause less disruption of utility lines and other nearby building projects, like Freedom Tower.

Gov. George E. Pataki "believes that this recommendation is the result of an inclusive process which reflects the input of the community and other Lower Manhattan stakeholders," a spokeswoman, Lynn Rasic, said yesterday. "This is the solution that best addresses the needs and concerns that have been raised."

She added that Mr. Pataki hoped some of the federal transit money that would have gone into the tunnel could be applied to a direct rail link between Long Island and Lower Manhattan.

Mr. Pataki endorsed the West Street tunnel two years ago, saying it would "divert loud, fast-moving highway traffic under-

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