by railtrailbiker
New Hudson tunnel is linchpin of $6B in rail improvements(From NorthJersey.com)
Sunday, January 9, 2005
By DANIEL SFORZA
STAFF WRITER
A $6 billion plan that would give North Jersey rail commuters a one-train ride to Manhattan has gained support on both sides of the Hudson River and could be completed within 10 years.
The plan hinges on building a new train tunnel under the river that would be fed by a sprawling network of new rail lines in Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex counties. The tunnel is estimated to cost $5 billion, with the additional projects costing $1 billion or more.
Funding would come from the federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The bi-state agency could commit up to $2 billion, Chairman Anthony Coscia said.
"This represents a comprehensive transportation solution that is completely consistent with what we see as our mission," Coscia said. "It's a lot, but for 40 or 50 years we've chosen the status quo. Our job is supposed to be to move people and goods throughout the region."
The Port Authority has already funded a $10 million engineering study that will examine how to expand the platforms at Penn Station to handle longer trains.
Federal money will also be a key to getting the project done.
"We just have to provide access to Manhattan for public safety reasons," said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-Paterson. "You could shut down the whole process of moving in case, God forbid, there is an attack in New York."
Pascrell said funding would be spread out over the length of construction, and that makes it likely the project will go through. In essence, lawmakers would be approving chunks at a time, not the whole $5 billion nut.
No dollar amount has been set in the next federal transportation budget, which is still under debate.
"We need this tunnel as soon as possible," he said.
Old tunnel at capacity
Aside from terrorism concerns, a new tunnel is needed simply because the 100-year-old tunnel that brings commuter trains between the states is at capacity.
In 1994, 88 trains each day made the trip to Manhattan from New Jersey during the morning rush hours. That jumped to 124 in 1999. And to 186 in 2004.
"The rate of growth has been significant over the past decade," NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington said. "If you look at where demand is going, where jobs are going to be created, it's clearly midtown Manhattan. It's clear that the way to allow that growth to continue is through rail."
NJ Transit estimates that once the tunnel is built, it would create 16,000 jobs and $3 billion worth of personal income. Ten years after completion, projections show that $100 million each year in additional taxes would be paid as a result of the economic growth created by the tunnel.
"We really have two choices," Coscia said. "We decide we are going to deemphasize the region ... or, alternatively, we find ways to expand the system. The tunnel project is really the only viable solution we have."
Jeffrey Zupan, senior fellow with the Regional Plan Association, said the project could change the entire region for the better.
"The fact that New Jersey is right across the river and has had a barrier all these years from Manhattan will be much less so," he said. "The ... project has an opportunity to transform the state and particularly the relationship with New York, which will not be as distant."
The project would be done in stages, with the earliest already under way.
The draft environmental impact statement is expected to be completed this summer, when preliminary engineering would begin. A final environmental impact statement is due by mid-2006, with construction starting later that year. The project could be finished by 2014.
A feat of engineering
The tunnel would be bored through the earth using a gigantic drilling machine that can produce a tube with a diameter as large as 40 feet.
It would begin just west of Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen and continue under Union City and Weehawken before reaching the Hudson River silt.
The tunnel would rise out of the silt at a grade of 1.9 percent and curve north to Penn Station. The tracks would continue beyond Penn to a new station at 34th Street.
The location does not interfere with Penn Station, but rather complements it, Warrington said. And tracks would extend underground beyond the new station, providing storage for trains during the day.
The retail possibilities were also viewed as a plus.
"There is a lot of interest in working with us," Warrington said of real estate developers and retailers such as Federated Department Stores, which owns Macy's. "They are very excited about the possibilities."
The 34th Street station was key to getting leaders on both sides of the river to agree to the plan.
"The Port Authority, NJ Transit and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are in real fundamental agreement," Coscia said. "The priorities are completely interconnected. We've gotten over the notion that each of us, independent of the other two, can be successful."
Warrington said it was important that New Jersey take into account the needs of New York. For instance, he said, an earlier proposal called for using a rail yard on the west side of Manhattan, where a Jets football stadium could be built, for train storage.
"I came to the conclusion that that is a battle we do not need," Warrington said. "I took it off the table."
Instead, the yard will be in New Jersey.
Warrington said there wasn't just one turning point, however.
"I think it's been an evolution," he said. "Historically, there's not an appreciation for the role New Jersey plays in the New York economy. I think we've been successful in educating New York that we do play an important role."
Working in N.Y.C.
There are some 250,000 New Jersey residents who work in Manhattan, and that number is expected to grow by 200,000 over the next 20 years, Warrington said.
Many of those workers will be coming from North Jersey, so a comprehensive system of rail links is needed to feed the tunnel.
Warrington wants to take the $1 billion needed to bring the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail from Ridgefield to Tenafly and redistribute it to other projects. The light rail would still be built - and even extend out to Hawthorne in Passaic County - but at a much reduced cost.
To get the plan rolling, the Bergen County portion of the system - essentially an electric trolley - would be replaced with a self-powered diesel train.
The "diesel multiple unit," or DMU, would run from Ridgefield to Tenafly on Bergen's Northern Branch, a freight line. It would also stretch from Hackensack to Hawthorne on a freight line operated by the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway.
The DMU is a new type of train that does not need to be pulled by a locomotive. Instead, small diesel engines mounted near the wheels power the passenger car, which can pull two additional cars.
This line to Tenafly could be built for $500 million and finished by 2010, Warrington said. The Passaic County link would cost $75 million to $100 million and could also be completed by 2010.
Those riding these new rails could reach the proposed Xanadu retail and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands through a transfer at a Tonnelle Avenue station in North Bergen, which is expected to open later this year. From there, riders could also continue directly to Manhattan or transfer onto the light rail to head south through Bayonne.
Warrington said creating all these connections is critical to the vitality of the region.
"If we don't do it, we will have an increasing paralysis of the transportation network," Warrington said. "What happens over time, almost invisibly, is economic growth slows. You wake up one day and find all the economic indicators are moving in the wrong direction."
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