I’m assuming you don’t have an answer.

@Joe,
I just want to add that your statement about funding getting lined up is patently false. The Port Authority has pledged $3 billion and $1.25 billion is coming from the Turnpike Authority. Most of the rest of the local contribution comes from flexed highway funds with a (relatively) tiny sliver coming from the state Transportation Trust Fund (I believe its about $100 million). Christie has already said that he supports the project so its not likely that he will try and pull funding when he comes into office.

If you have any evidence to dispute this, please give it but make it specific. Just calling something phony or someone a liar does not an argument make.

p.s. I’m still waiting on your explanation of the transferring “ordeal.”

You were talking about an “ordeal” in transferring to the IND 8th ave, not about the costs of the project. You have still not answered my question as to why a transfer from the ARC station would be an ordeal compared with the current congested connection from NYP.

I don’t know what NYCDOT’s plans are regarding signal prioritization/preemption for the transitway but just having an exclusive ROW greatly improves service.

If you actually read the ARC FEIS, the impacts on the existing subway service are analyzed.

If, according to you, the MTA will not arrange bus routes to meet demand for travel within NYC if those travelers are from NJ, how do you believe it would plausible for the MTA to accommodate the delays and hassle caused by making a connection to the Flushing line after the extension is already in service. In order to do so you’d have to *gasp* bring a TBM near an active subway line and hollow out a cavern for the required flying junction. Then the MTA would have adjust its service plan for bifurcated service and the city would get half the service that it just spent $2+ billion for its new station at the Javitz Center/West Side Yards redevelopment.

I personally would not want to have to wait another 10+ years to address the very real issues that ARC tackles thank you.

@Steve L.
You seem to have decided that this is a “wasteful pork-barrel project” and probably nothing I can say will change your mind about that. I hope that I am wrong about that. I would encourage you to try to understand the project better for yourself and not just to read/listen to rants by people like Joe. I would start with the FEIS.

For the record, I’ve never worked for any government agency or corporation affiliated with the ARC project or standing to benefit from it. I’m just someone who is very interested about transportation issues and thinks that the ARC project, despite its flaws, stands to greatly benefit those who use public transportation in NJ.

@Steven H,
Thank you.

A “transitway” is nothing more than a damned BUS that will stop every block, or do you think it will be able to trigger green lights on all the north-south avenues stopping them as they approach ? It will take 20 of them to equal one subway train and another myth you are depending on. Again, no ability to handle rail passengers in ARC’s thousands of pages of puff and bluff. Best to head to PABT. The TA does not arrange bus nor subway routes to serve New Jersey commuters. Jersey commuters are a drop in the bucket for everyone in Manhattan needing to move about. Crosstown bus service will be the M34, whether it is called “transitway” or “BRT”.

If they have to start form scratch, so be it.
“Service Plans” depend on operating subsidies, not fantasies of planners.

Using the transitway, you would not need to go back down for the Lex but rather stay on the surface for service using either Madison/5th or 1st/2nd.

The 7 train to Secaucus idea is not a serious one at this point in time. ARC has thousands of pages worth of studies looking at all the impacts on the human and natural environment. The 7 train has a website with maps drawn on lined notebook paper. Even if ARC was dropped in favor of pursuing this idea, it still would require years and millions of dollars worth of studies in order to receive federal funding.

In any case, by that point the 7 train extension would be in service and you’d have to bring TBMs right into an active subway line.

According to the 2030 service plan, most trains that currently terminate in Hoboken will continue to do so (24 currently vs. 18 under the build plan).

@Clark
I’m pretty sure the 70% figure came from the ESA documents talking about LI commuter jobs within walking distance of GCT.

Ralph Braskett