ARC Tunnel - Revisited (Again)

I could not find an "unlocked" thread on this topic . If there is one, I will rely on the moderators to "fix".

On the op-ed page of today's Asbury Park Press, Bob Ingle wrote http://www.app.com/article/20100609/OPI ... s-savings-

It will be interesting to see if this gains any traction in Trenton.

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Edited thread title.

I see a few contradictions and incomplete claims in the article

New Jersey's ARC Tunnel doesn't go to the Moynihan Station, being built by the federal government, where the other transit trains and Amtrak will be. Monyihan replaces Penn Station.

Because it is spending so much on the new ARC station, New Jersey isn't going to renovate its digs at Penn Station

I thought NJT's digs at Penn Station were the result of major renovations within the past 15 years. What are the new renovations that the author thinks should be done at Penn Station?
If, as the author says Monyihan replaces Penn Station, why should anyone renovate Penn Station?

If the tunnel had been designed to be more shallow and meet up with the Moynihan station, the story goes, there could have been a year delay or so for permits while environmental studies were done by New York. That would have messed up Corzine's photo op.

I thought the original plan had been for a shallow tunnel to meet up with either Moynihan or Penn Station, and there had been studies which found that there are various physical obstacles on the New York side of the river that in New York's opinion would have made a shallow tunnel impractical. One obstacle I think I read about was a retaining wall that's supposed to keep parts of Manhatten from sliding into the Hudson river. I wonder if that wall was there when they dug the existing Hudson river railroad tunnels. Maybe the excuse is New York didn't want anybody poking new holes into the wall. At any rate if New York had been the decider in this situation why would anyone expect them to be more likely to issue shallow tunnel permits now?

That article mentions -- as if it's a completely obvious point that everyone knows about -- that Amtrak has budgeted $10 billion for backup tunnels to Penn. This seems like an enormous scoop. Is there anything to this notion?

See page 32 of AMTRACK NEC Master Plan http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServe ... 10_v1a.pdf

"Core Growth requirements also include a placeholder estimate totalling $11 billion for new tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers and the addition of up to 6 tracks in Penn station, NY to meet 2030 service levels."

I see, it's on an unfunded wish list. I liked the article's obligatory Jeff Tittel quote. If someone wants to put a turtle pool on their back lawn, a neighbor could get Tittel to put out a press release against the "unplanned development" and have his Sierra Club launch a lawsuit against it.

JCGUY wrote: That article mentions -- as if it's a completely obvious point that everyone knows about -- that Amtrak has budgeted $10 billion for backup tunnels to Penn. This seems like an enormous scoop.

...I believe that this is the first time that someone has taken all the various pieces and put them together in a widely circulated article. I think it is going to annoy the general public; at least here in cash starved New Jersey; that both Amtrak and NJT will separately spend $10B each to accomplish the (almost) same task, with NJT now proceeding alone without any financing (or participation) from Amtrak, New York City or New York State.

It may annoy the 1% of the population that pays any attention to it. It does not seem realistic to believe that Amtrak is at all capable of building another rail tunnel. There is not enough money available, and what they have seems destined to be set on fire for vanity projects in Florida and California at the administration's direction. From my perspective, I'd rather have two more sets of tunnels than one more set anyway. The main objections to ARC are that it doesn't go to the right spot and does not provide true redundancy to the current rail tunnel. That said, ARC is the only tunnel ya got, so what is the point of stopping the process now. The outcome of that would be what exactly, some other tunnel maybe built by 2050?

What should be the key objections to ARC are ones that no one makes, namely that the thing has diverted a ton of toll revenue from the Turnpike and PA, thus eliminating their abilities to fund other crying local needs (Bayonne Bridge, Goethals, Turnpike spurs), not that anyone here cares because in the future we'll all be riding trains for our needs, what with peak oil, new urbanist development and the constant attacks on cars by roving bands of CHUDS and all that.

what is the current status of the project? i work nearby and see little work being done. A new overpass was built..thats it from the naked eye.

Also will the freight railroads be used to get dirt/rock to and from this site? seems like rail would be ideal to move all the dirt..etc

Reminds me of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, where the plans have been posted at the local sector seat at alpha centauri and only ford knows about the project to eliminate the earth. "Well, you've got to build bypasses!".

PANYNJ is still procuring property/ROW in both NY and NJ, and remember, it took 1WTC years to get above street level, now it's shooting up fast, they gotta do a million small things before they do the big visible stuff. They are clearing land in the meadows and the landfill area near portal, which will be integral to the ARC project. When new portal is done, ARC will be not too far behind.

- A

gardendance wrote:I see a few contradictions and incomplete claims in the article

New Jersey's ARC Tunnel doesn't go to the Moynihan Station, being built by the federal government, where the other transit trains and Amtrak will be. Monyihan replaces Penn Station.

Because it is spending so much on the new ARC station, New Jersey isn't going to renovate its digs at Penn Station

I thought NJT's digs at Penn Station were the result of major renovations within the past 15 years. What are the new renovations that the author thinks should be done at Penn Station?
If, as the author says Monyihan replaces Penn Station, why should anyone renovate Penn Station?

If the tunnel had been designed to be more shallow and meet up with the Moynihan station, the story goes, there could have been a year delay or so for permits while environmental studies were done by New York. That would have messed up Corzine's photo op.

I thought the original plan had been for a shallow tunnel to meet up with either Moynihan or Penn Station, and there had been studies which found that there are various physical obstacles on the New York side of the river that in New York's opinion would have made a shallow tunnel impractical. One obstacle I think I read about was a retaining wall that's supposed to keep parts of Manhatten from sliding into the Hudson river. I wonder if that wall was there when they dug the existing Hudson river railroad tunnels. Maybe the excuse is New York didn't want anybody poking new holes into the wall. At any rate if New York had been the decider in this situation why would anyone expect them to be more likely to issue shallow tunnel permits now?

Since the whole article is pretty well along the lines of local rail advocacy's "Penn Station First" argument, I think I can shed some light. The argument about access to Moynihan is predicated on the idea that the main constraint to capacity in NJT's section of Penn Station (not counting the tunnels, obviously) is the ability to clear people off the platforms, due, the argument goes, to a combination of too few vertical access points and too many obstructions on the platforms. The point that is frequently made to support this is that the LIRR, with five vertical access points per platform and much clearer platforms, can clear a train in 12 minutes, while NJT needs 20. The idea of integrating with Moynihan is to get one or two more vertical access points, not to fit into some grandiose new gateway to New York.

Personally while I feel the issue of clearing people is there, I'm not convinced that it, in combination with some other basic enhancements grasped at from the DEIS (such as short tunnels leading east to serve as a "vertical yard" to shove extra trains in), would be good enough.

Where are the numbers coming from that LIRR needs 12 minutes to clear a train while NJT needs 20???

thats simply not true.

Maybe they would want 20 minutes as a minimum so staff could go through the train, hurry up and flip seats and pick up garbage and do brake tests, etc without passengers, in an ideal situation

but in reality, a train can be unloaded, set up, and loaded and on the move in under 10min now in NYP. Sure its crazy but it can be done, and its done nearly every night. And this is during peak periods.

Anyway, on some/most tracks the access to Moynahan is going to be limited anyway - you can have all the access points you want on the platform, but they have to be near where the train is actually located, for people to use them. Trains are still going to pull all the way east in NYP. Meaning the majority of the passengers will unload towards the current sets of stairways. Sure, a 10 or especially a 12 car train on some of the middle tracks would benefit greatly from an extra set of access points, like an extenion of the LIRR concourse that ends at track 14, but stairs and elevators a block away aren't going to be that benefical.

Now, from what I remember of the plans and its been a while since i looked at them, there would be corridors that would lead up to the main concourse, so its not like it would be a straight shot from the platforms to the Moynahan concourse, and the stairs be all the way on the west end. However, additional stairs and access points to the platforms, and a reconfiguring of the station by the extension of the lower tracks would allow more trains to be "stacked" on the same track, and I think that is going to be more of a reality than simply emptying the platforms faster. Instead its going to pretty much stay as it is now, as most folks on that second train on that track will exit via Moynahan access while east train will use the current station access.

Jtgshu wrote: Now, from what I remember of the plans and its been a while since i looked at them, there would be corridors that would lead up to the main concourse, so its not like it would be a straight shot from the platforms to the Moynahan concourse, and the stairs be all the way on the west end. However, additional stairs and access points to the platforms, and a reconfiguring of the station by the extension of the lower tracks would allow more trains to be "stacked" on the same track, and I think that is going to be more of a reality than simply emptying the platforms faster. Instead its going to pretty much stay as it is now, as most folks on that second train on that track will exit via Moynahan access while east train will use the current station access.

My understanding is that Moynihan would extend the LIRR West End concourse through tracks 5/6 as it's currently planned, which would obviously put the extra access at the west end of the train. Unfortunately it does not call for extending 1-4 or building aprons into the concourse to reach them, which definitely limits the benefit NJT could get from it.

One point that has been obscured is the simple fact the Amtrak tunnels are ancient and how long do these things last before a catastophic failure occurs ? The Army corps of Engineers and others posed the same question after a detailed inspection of same in 2008 found them to be in good shape. The big " What If " prompted the Fed/Gov to get off its duff and put some money into the equation pre- stimulus. Due to the lousy job the Feds do with just about every thing they touch these days, even they realise, pouring capital into the NEC has now become an imperative. One can only imagine waking up some morning and hearing the news the Amtrak tunnels into Penn station have ruptured and it will be years before they can be re built. The ramifications to the tri state economy would be significant. One hundred years later we stand on the cusp of finally building new rail tunnels into the city.

Jtgshu wrote:Where are the numbers coming from that LIRR needs 12 minutes to clear a train while NJT needs 20???

thats simply not true.

Agreed. Those numbers are ludicrous.

gardendance wrote:I thought the original plan had been for a shallow tunnel to meet up with either Moynihan or Penn Station, and there had been studies which found that there are various physical obstacles on the New York side of the river that in New York's opinion would have made a shallow tunnel impractical.

That was indeed one of the main reasons. Additionally, the soil samples revealed the ground not to be as suitable as expected for doing the type of work that was planned. There's a litany of reasons why the tunnels can't/won't be built to connect to PSNY; just try telling that to the Lackawanna Coalition though.