Will N. Shore Connector get some love?

The Port Authority's North Shore Connector is now 83 percent complete and perhaps it is time for everyone to stop talking about how much better life would be if only we'd had the wisdom not to build it.

The new Gateway Center station shell is almost finished, as is the overhead track on the North Shore and the underground station near PNC Park. The project remains on schedule to be open for service in March 2012 at a cost of $528.8 million, nearly all of it a gift from the federal government.

After a briefing on the project Wednesday morning, authority board member Jeff Letwin made this prediction for the connector's opening day:

"Everyone who criticized it will be standing there cutting the ribbon and saying 'What a great project.' "

Post-Gazette photo by Darrell Sapp