Over the weekend, NJ Transit announced a 30-day shutdown of all new work on the Access to the Region’s Core tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York. According to NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein, the delay will allow the agency to review the budget and costs for the project, which will pave the way for major improvements in reliability and increased service on New Jersey’s train system.
Efforts to rein in cost overruns are well and good. But transportation advocates wondered whether the work stoppage would be a prelude to other delays. TSTC executive director Kate Slevin told the NY Times that the stoppage “cast a dark shadow over the project,” while Regional Plan Association’s Jeff Zupan said “my fear is New Jersey will say, ‘Oh, it costs just too much,’ and delay it further.”
Furthermore, state officials have yet to announce a plan to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund, which funds most of the state’s transportation projects and is about to go bankrupt. “Raiding the funds dedicated to the tunnel cannot be an option,” TSTC said in a statement. It might be all too tempting to sacrifice long-term benefit to allow the fund to limp through another year.
As the Star-Ledger notes, the $8.7 billion cost of the tunnels pales in comparison to the economic activity produced by rail riders who commute between the states:
There has been little debate that increased commuter capacity is desperately needed. The number of people riding the trains to New York has increased more than four-fold in the past two decades — a work force that brings back $50 billion a year in income from New York to New Jersey.
Double-decker train cars and new signaling systems have helped boost the number of trains and available seats, but the bottleneck through which all New York-bound trains must travel — two, century-old tunnels originally built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and now operated by Amtrak — has reached its limit. The tunnels simply cannot accommodate any additional traffic.
U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who has fought for the project for many years, warned that the delay “could put billions of dollars in federal funding at risk.” The federal government and Port Authority are contributing $3 billion each for the project. The state is paying the remaining $2.7 billion.
NJ Transit could ask for support for the tunnel project from NortEast PA, IF they finish the 20 miles or track replacement on the Lackawanna cut-off at the same time they are building the Tunnel.
New Yrok MTA may also contribute if the Port Jervis line service is increased. This is Multi-State issue and NJ needs to look outside it’s borders for more finacial support.
Chuck Roberts, Milford PA. (Port Jervis Line rider.)
The project as designed is terminally stupid with the pun intended. It has a two level terminal where the platforms are designed to have the boarding passengers conflict with those getting off. It has no hope of a connection to Grand Central Terminal because of the water tunnel issue. It and the Long Island Rail Road Grand Central fiasco will be deeper than most if not all terminal rail stations. It provides poor connectivity to any MTA service. The Secaucus connection may be slower than a transfer. The route is convoluted. The assumption that dual modes will be safe or allowed may not be valid. What is the record of P32s and FL9s operating on diesel in both Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal? So far as I know the NJT locomotive will be the first locomotive to be diesel and AC although there are French MUs that are configured for that operation (the AGC by Bombardier).
In addition, more capacity could be gained by operating 10 -12 car trains from the Morris and Essex by splitting them at Newark Broad Street into Montclair and Summit locals or Summit into Dover and Gladstone trains. Other variants of the merge split may be better.
The tunnnel capacity is needed, but the station design is all wrong. It should be possible for Amtrak or even freights to use the tunnels when not required for commuter trains. With the present design, that is not an option.
[…] the Access to the Region’s Core project. It speaks for itself. Given the recently announced 30-day stoppage of new work on the project, the letter hopefully still represents the governor’s views on the […]
[…] stoppage of new work on the project earlier this month, ostensibly as a way to review costs. But the worry has been that the Christie administration is planning to cancel or delay the project as a way to bandage up […]