Archives
Categories

NJ Transit Digs It! Trans-Hudson Tunnel Work to Begin

Governor Corzine today addressed NJ Transit’s board of directors for the last time, as he took the podium to praise the agency for moving forward with the first tunneling contract for the Access to the Region’s Core Tunnel. In a short, bittersweet speech, the outgoing governor touted the project’s merits, stating that, “On almost any analytic front, this is an enormous contribution in turning around an economy in need of economic drivers.” The Governor went on to thank NJ Transit board chair Stephen Dilts, executive director Rich Sarles, and the project team for ” their vision and tenacity… all of work that has been done and all of the work that will be done.”

In a related move, the NJ Transit Board approved engineering and design funding for a project to upgrade the Portal Bridge, a drawbridge which brings Northeast Corridor trains across the Hackensack River but sometimes stays open for hours, snarling traffic for tens of thousands of NJ Transit and Amtrak riders. Sister projects, ARC and the Portal Bridge go hand in hand, as the new bridge is necessary for enhanced service once the tunnel opens.

 

Share This Post on Social
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

23 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Clark Morris
Clark Morris
14 years ago

What is the addiction of New Jersey Transit to flawed solutions that get the least amount of benefit for the dollar? The current plan does not provide for connection with the MTA either at Grand Central or through use of the existing Penn Station. We have to ask of New Jersey Transit rolled over to Manhattan real estate interests who are the ones might gain the most from the ARC. Then there is the Portal Bridge replacement with BOTH a fixed bridge and a movable bridge instead of one 4 or 5 track fixed bridge. The convoluted connection from the ex-Erie-Lackawanna lines to the Corridor is probably slower than a transfer. This project should be shut down and re-evaluated before future generations are saddled with higher ongoing costs than necessary while not obtaining the full benefits that should be there for this size expenditure.

Steve Lanset - NJ Sierra Club
Steve Lanset - NJ Sierra Club
14 years ago

It is appalling that this passenger rail tunnel will dead-end underneath 34th St. short of NYC water tunnel #1. The deep (175 feet) dead-end rail station will cost $3 billion. Putting it optimistically, this white elephant offers no benefit to Amtrak and bus riders. Why are NJT and the Port Authority going to all this trouble to run end around the environmental and other permitting required to go into Penn Station?

Chris H
Chris H
14 years ago

@Clark,

NJT has no power of eminent domain in NYC so it is in no position to force anyone’s hand when it comes to real estate. Check out the latest presentation on the portal bridge site. Both spans are now fixed (3 track northern, 2 track southern). Only the Main/Bergen and Pascack Valley Lines will use the Secaucus connection (loop tracks). According to the FEIS, the average peak period commute time from Suffern should decrease by about 5 minutes. The M&E and Montclair-Boonton (also ex-EL) will use the southern new portal bridge and will benefit from not having to merge onto the NEC at Swift resulting in fewer delays.

@Steve,

The planned station may be “dead-end” for now (a buffer is going to be built on the upper level so that the tail tracks and possibly a connection eastward can be built after #3 opens and NYC DEP allows construction near #1), but it will also provide direct, underground connections to the B,D,F,V,N,R,Q, and W New York City Subway services and the uptown PATH which the current NYP does not provide. The 2030 plan provides for another peak period slot for Amtrak to NYP, something that would not be otherwise possible without taking slots away from NJT as the current tunnel is at capacity. The Lincoln tunnel approach express bus lane (XBL) and PABT are both currently currently at capacity. Under a no-build scenario, bus trips are expected to increase by 20% with no increase in bus service. The build scenario reduces the increase to 15%.

As far as environmental issues go, by going with a deeper tunnel, the project will limit the impact on the riverbed that a shallower tunnel would have required (cofferdams, breaching the Hudson river bulkhead, etc.) I don’t understand why you consider avoiding environmental impacts “an end run.”

Joe Versaggoi
Joe Versaggoi
14 years ago

Your alphabet soup of connecting subway lines is not impressive, just regurgitation of NJT propaganda. Replacing the E train is the inferior V train to access the important 53rd Street Corridor. It doesn’t even run late at night or on weekends. The PATH train connection is completely worthless. There is no way to get to the east side except on the double IRT ride of today. 70% of rail passengers work within a 10 minute walking radius of GCT. Remember that.

This project is NO solution to the Lincoln Tunnel bus situation. Nobody is going to give up their bus ride to PABT for a railway bunker 175 feet down and 7 blocks south of where they are now. 42nd Street has 2 east-west subways. 34th Street has Zero. Some people simply cannot take the train. Paramus bus passengers cannot all simply park in Ridgewood. Most of those lots are municipally owned.

Nobody believes those tail tracks will ever get extended east. Once this boondoggle is completed, there will be no money and no way a TBM machine will be allowed near an active railway terminal.

This project requires a successful invention of a dual-powered locomotive. It does not exist, and it will not be prototyped, just recklessly mass-produced by Bombardier, a builder with a limited and spotty record of building locomotives in this country – the Amtrak HHP8 and the Acela, both overweight and high-maintenance.

It would be relatively simple and cheap to simply extend the #7 from its westward extension to Lincoln Harbor and Secaucus to intercept both rail and bus passengers. Passengers would ride reverse peak #7 trains to Manhattan, which run every 2 minutes. If anyone were interested in moving people by train, rather than playing train, that is what would be done.

Steve Strauss
Steve Strauss
14 years ago

NJ Transit’s deep stub-in tunnel is half a loaf. I’m sure most NJ Transit riders are unaware how deep their new station will be and by the fact that it does not physically connect with Penn Station.

The failure to connect with Penn Station means the new tunnel provides almost no increase in capacity for intercity passenger rail service along the NEC. NY Penn Station is and will continue to be the bottleneck preventing more high speed service to Albany, Harrisburg, Richmond, Springfield and all of the other branches of the NEC.

Steve Lanset - NJ Sierra Club
Steve Lanset - NJ Sierra Club
14 years ago

Chris H., my friends at the Sierra Club tell me that going through the bulk head is no big deal, has little environmental impact, but would trigger SEQRA – NY State’s EIS and permitting for NYC.

The original design for the Tunnel into Penn Station would have placed it 50 feet lower than the NE Corridor and 90 feet higher than the currently planned tunnel to a deep cavern under 34th St.
It would go under the rail yard and be one story lower than current Penn Station.

Chris H
Chris H
14 years ago

@Joe,
The new station also has direct access to the IND 8th ave (ACE) and IRT 7th Ave/Broadway (123).

Passengers using the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) arrive/depart on the second or third story of the terminal. To make connections with the subway, they must go below the surface, upto 60 feet for the 7 train. More importantly, most of them need to walk 900 feet west to reach most of the services at the Times Square-42nd street station. When you consider that passengers connecting to Subway services from the ARC terminal would not even have to travel the 153 feet from the mezzanine to the surface, the difference in vertical travel is essentially a wash between the two terminals.

NYCDOT is planning on converting 34th street into a transitway.

Who do you mean by nobody? TBMs are going near an active railway terminal right now with ESA. Besides, they specifically are planning on leaving a buffer to stage a TBM for an eastward extension.

Do you have any real evidence to back up your assertions about the 7 train?

@Steve S,
The vast majority of trains servicing Penn are commuter trains. ARC removes all of the Morris and Essex and Montclair-Boonton traffic from Penn which allows for an increase in intercity rail service in the peak hour even with increased service along NJT’s Northeast Corridor Line and NJCL in the 2030 plan. Service to Albany has almost nothing to do with trans-hudson capacity and more to do with capacity at Penn Station, which this project will help with.

@Steve L,
The bulkhead is an historic resource which is eligible for listing in the registrar of national historic places. The old plans are irrelevant anyhow because geological surveying found that the old plan provided for insufficient rock cover for the station cavern(s) and was not constructable.

Steve Lanset
Steve Lanset
14 years ago

Chris H, when you say “insufficient rock cover for the station cavern(s)”, which station caverns are you referring to? Rail tunnels and underground stations have been built without heavy rock cover all over the world. The “historic” character of the bulkhead is not a major obstacle. Does your argument mean that we can never replace or modify “historic” infrastructure in NYC?

Picking up on Joe Versaggi’s point, have the proposed dual-mode locomotives from Bombardier been sufficiently tested? Have they been in operational use anywhere? Are they safe?

Can you explain how a meaningful number of present Lincoln Tunnel bus commuters will be attracted to the ARC tunnel into dead-end station with a fancy concourse many blocks out of their way? Most of them are headed for destinations in mid-town and up-town Manhattan. The ARC tunnel would take them further out of their way. Extension of the No. 7 train to Lincoln Harbor and Secaucus, mentioned by Joe above, would resolve that problem better. Not to mention provide better service to NJ commuter rail, HBLRT, and NYC customers.

Joe Versaggi
Joe Versaggi
14 years ago

A 34th Street “Transitway” is nothing more than buses. When they get to Park and 34th – then what ? Take the #6 local uptown ? All that is doing is riding the other 2 sides of the square. You are still better off with a bus to PABT and The Shuttle. Removing a 6 or 7 minute transfer at Newark or Secaucus is not the magic bullet that will turn bus into rail passengers.

Access to the 8th Avenue subway would be far poorer and more distant than now from within the real Penn Station. What you are disregarding is the horizontal distance. What is a now short escalator ride up to the lower level mezzanine, a short walk across the tracks, and up a few more steps to the uptown local platform becomes quite an ordeal from the Bunker that lies between 7th and 6th Avenues.

NYCTA, as well as PATH, tunnels are full of bell-mouths and provisions for this and that. You can write a book about them. None have ever come to fruition except connecting of the IND and BMT to the 63rd Street tunnel, and that took 20 years after 57th/6th Ave got built. I am not impressed with 34th Street Station “buffers”. NYC is not about to give up a water tunnel right of way to a Jersey project, and will likely want that old water tunnel retained as a backup.

The LIRR ESA Bunker is at least within walking distance of a critical mass of employment, and 8 stub tracks can process 24 trains per hour. Not so with ARC’s 6 track bunker. This “doubling of capacity” nonsense cannot be proven.

DON E.
DON E.
14 years ago

Steve L. – Going through the bulkhead and disrupting Hudson River park is a VERY BIG deal. In fact, it would require a special act by the NY Legislature.

The reason the new tunnel won’t connect to the existing Penn Station and is going deeper is because the geology in the vicinity WILL NOT support a shallower structure.

Dual mode locomotives are common (see LIRR & Amtrak), it is, however, new to be using catenary rather than third-rail.

And as far as the Lincoln Tunnel goes, the project is not designed to specifically cater to Bergen County residents.

Joe Versaggi
Joe Versaggi
14 years ago

Dual-powered catenary engines have nothing whatever in common with the 3rd rail variety and do not exist. The LIRR Super Steel engines have an MDBF of 16,000 miles, are certified lemons, and used for just 5 round-trips per weekday.Other than the Poughkeepsie service, Metro North P32DM’s do not enter the city outside of rush hours.

If you think the Lincoln Tunnel is just for Bergen County residents, you are too ignorant to be here.

Chris H
Chris H
14 years ago

@Joe,
There is a huge difference between buses in mixed traffic and buses in an exclusive ROW so its not “just buses.” Said transitway would connect to the 1st/2nd ave Select Bus Service. If the demand is there, buses could always be through-routed from the 34th st transitway to either the proposed 1st/2nd ave lanes or the existing Madison/5th ave bus lanes.

From the FEIS, page 1-5

The purpose of ARC is to: (1) increase trans-Hudson commuter rail capacity between Frank R. Lautenberg Station and midtown Manhattan to accommodate projected growth of rail passengers; (2) enhance customer convenience and reduce travel time with more one-seat-ride service; (3) increase rail system reliability within ARC project limits; and (4) maintain system safety and security.

The project has the effect of reducing the increase in demand for bus service but it is not at all intended to convert bus riders to rail riders.

Figures 2-4 and 2-5 of the FEIS show that the station’s escalator to 8th avenue start between 8th and 7th, around 450 feet from the IND station. Most NJT trains come into the southern side of the station, near 31st street which is 400 feet from entrance to the IND station at 33rd street.

It is not the short trip that you describe transferring from a train during peak periods. Usually it takes quite a while to exit the train due to passenger congestion on the platform and on the escalator/stairs. The new station helps address this issue with wider platforms and wider/more stairs/escalators to the mezzanine.

From the figures it seems like a pretty straightforward connection. Can you explain to me, specifically, what the big ordeal is?

Joe Versaggi
Joe Versaggi
14 years ago

The big ordeal is $4 Billion that need not be spent constructing a Bunker in Manhattan that will do nothing to improve trip times to work. It’s the same subway trip, or have them surface to the street to stick them on a bus along 34th Street, then plunge them underground again to the Lex.

Then pray that Cruiser bus passengers will switch. Otherwise, we will have just Pascack, Bergen, Main, Raritan and Bay Head trains, and diverted M&E trains. The diesel branch trains now average 6 cars, and don’t even send half of their passengers to Penn Station to begin with. The LIRR dual-mode train to Port Jeff, Speonk, and Oyster Bay did nothing to woo back riders from the Ronkonkoma Branch Electrics, and neither will these. So we are going to do all this to send a bunch of half-empty 6 car trains to Manhattan.

This is a 1920’s style project: force everyone into the out-of-the-way rail terminal, then have them scatter onto overcrowded subways. Modern systems like MARC and VRE intercept rail transit at outlying points for transfers, like at Alexendria, Rockville, Silver Spring, and New Carrollton. It is not desirable to have everyone go to Union Station – that is not where they work.

What were you planning to do with Hoboken-bound passengers headed for lower Manhattan and the Gold Coast when many of those trains get diverted to the Bunker ? They’ll drive through the Holland Tunnel. Don’t expect a boost in the operating budget for lots more trains.

Secaucus Junction was built for $684 million – now use it. Run the #7 there and take people to work, period, on reverse peak subway trains that would start their runs there. That is a TWO seat ride. What you want to give them is a THREE seat ride, but repeat the consumer fraud of calling it a 1-seat ride since you do not count what happens to passengers once the train hits the bumper block at 6th Avenue.

Ralph Braskett
Ralph Braskett
14 years ago

Joe & Steve have explained the #7 extension basics. Note: there would be empty #7 train every 4 min. in peak hours, as half the service from Flushing goes to Mayor’s west side terminal.
Let’s Look at the Big Picture: Bus Riders-2.5 to 3.0 times more numerous than NJT train riders-get nothing from this or enhanced Penn Station tunnels. Joe gave the basic reason; in addition, there is NO parking at most NJT rail stations.
Our region must improve public transit to compete in the 21st century; yet our 3 states are cutting
public transit. The regional transit vehicle is a
car. The GCT area is the choice of 70% of peak NJT rail riders and presumably bus riders as well.
The #7 extension solves all those problems:
Lower Cost to build and operate.
2 seat ride to GCT area & 53rd st. corridor for
all NJT rail & bus riders-not 2 or 3 seat rides.
Provides NYC residents of Manhattan, Bronx, Queens
with easy commutes to NJ Gold Coast with #7&HBLRT
Similar story for Westchester & CT riders fr.GCT.
Bus Riders avoid bus lane/tunnel backups in AM by
taking #7 in NJ.
Less crowded PSNY & PABT, also 1,2,3 & Shuttle.
No Losers only Winners compared to current.

Ralph Braskett

Chris H
Chris H
14 years ago

@Joe,
You dodged my question. I asked you what the “ordeal” is that you referred to when transferring (using the NYPSE vs. existing penn station) and you went on a rant about project costs.

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.

Joe Versaggi
Joe Versaggi
14 years ago

Yes project costs are an ordeal, not a rant and not a dodge. Federal and state dollars are nowhere near to being lind up, and NJ will pay ALL cost-overruns, as with LIRR’s ESA.

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.

Steve Lanset
Steve Lanset
14 years ago

Who is Chris H.? Does (or did) he work for a company or government agency funded by this wasteful pork-barrel project?

Steven Higashide
14 years ago

Steve, keep it civil or at least substantive.

Chris H
Chris H
14 years ago

@Joe,

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.

Chris H
Chris H
14 years ago

Haven’t gotten a response yet…

@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.”

Chris H
Chris H
14 years ago

@Joe,

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

oak barrels
14 years ago

Fixing a bottleneck requires diverting the “traffic” from the focus area, and developing a solution which allows the same nubers of drivers to decrease in the focus area and increase in the developed site. Does this project do this?

Derek
Derek
14 years ago

I willing to bet that by the time this tunnel is finished we would require another tunnel with 2 more lanes. And I am willing to bet that this project will cost twice the money they are saying it would cost. NJ Transit sucks. One of the worst service.

23
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x