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New York, New Jersey governors, Feds agree on Hudson tunnels
Who owns the tunnels? If Amtrak has an issue with the current ones, then Amtrak and its subsidies should pay for it. Ok lets here the backlash.
Lets hear the backlash
The photo is of the line leading to the East River Tunnels, which the caption states are in disrepair. The article refers to the Hudson River Tunnels. Will the East River tunnels also be included in the upgrades?
Too bad it took a crisis of “almost criminal” and “major threat to the region” proportions, rather than foresight, to get elected officials moving on this sorely needed project. But, elections are coming and “potholes” do need to be fixed.
Finally. This is the most concerted action we have seen, thus far, on this desperately needed project. For those of us who use the Hamilton to New York segment fairly regularly, it can’t come soon enough. Hopefully, regional political alliances can be set aside and the energies focused on this most important effort for the entire Northeast Corridor. Wouldn’t it be magical to have an ‘Alexander Cassatt’ like figure [the visionary President of the Pennsylvania Railroad who envisioned the first NY ‘Gateway’] to emerge and take the reins to lead the 21st Century version. Just Do It…
The key phrase here is the politicians agreed to. What politicians? New Jersey and New York state legislators may be amenable, but what about at federal level. I want to be positive about this, but we will see.
16 Candidates running for President on “immigration reform” but which one of them would build a new George Washington Bridge to alleviate the 40 minute wait to cross a river? The silence is deafening
Aren’t these the same tunnels that drew such criticism from Chris Christie a few years ago? He withdrew New Jersey’s support from the project. I’ll bet he’s going to take credit for them now.
Let’s set the record straight on Gov. Christie and this project . Mr. Howard these aren’t the same tunnels nor project that Christie had the extremely good foresight to cancel . The ARC project that was canceled while under preliminary construction in NJ would have built very deep train tunnels under the Hudson River into NYC and then end in a stub station with 3 sets of layered tracks under the Macy’s dept. store basement. The deepest tracks would have been ~ 160 + feet under 34th street. There was to be no interconnection with NYC Penn Station , thus Amtrak couldn’t use the station and wouldn’t contribute (all their NYC trains are “thru trains”), and the state of NY as well as NYC and the Port Authority of NY & NJ wouldn’t contribute to this project either. In addition , six years ago when this project was approved by NJ Democratic Gov. Corzime and Democratic legislators it was estimated to cost $8 billion with the Federal Govt contributing $5 billion . New Jersey was required to contribute the remaining $3 billion as well as pay for any cost overruns over $8 billion. We now know that the current Amtrak Gateway project will cost at least $15 billion and more likely $20 billion . And this is without any costs for a NYC train station which already exists (Penn Station). Interesting enough ,Amtrak has quietly been self financing for the past 3 years (total cost when finished $300 million) a 1700 foot cement “box” deep under the massive Hudson Yards commercial building project that will house two tracks . These tracks will connect Penn Station to the new tunnels under the Hudson. This project is now about 55% complete( great pictures on their website). And adding back at least $2-3 billion for a new train station in NYC, we now know that the final cost for the ARC project would have been at least $17-23 billion , and NJ would have been"stuck with at least a minimum $9-13 billion cost overrun . Thank God Chris Christie came along and prevented this from happeni
Thank you, Mr. Nicholas, for laying out all the facts on this story, which usually gets simplified and twisted in the press to “Christie killed the tunnels”. Think what you may of Chris Christie, but I believe history will show he made the right (and courageous) decision to shut down this boondoggle before it went any further. Now he has thrown his support toward building the new tunnels where they should have gone in the first place and funded as a joint project by all the agencies in the area, to the benefit of all.
Pay for it like the airports do with a surcharge on everyone’s ticket that is dedicated solely to paying for the new tunnels.