HUGE MISTAKE

I am no fan of Jersey, but the current two tunnels are not going to magically get bigger and support even higher numbers of commuters. Canceling this would be very short sighted and a big loss for both New Jersey and New York.

It makes no sense to walk away from free Federal money... This tunnel will need to be done at some point in time, and will only cost more in the future.

then can i have that model?

Raise taxes on the rich and on corporations to where they ought to be and eliminate loopholes. We'd be drowning in money. Duh!

So they can't build the tunnel because they're broke, but now they have a BILLION dollars to blow on roads?

No they dont. Usually when a state kills a project, they have to pay back their federal money. It can't be used for anything except what it was approved for.

NJ is either waiting for a bailout/super stimulus from Obama, or they realized the project is retarded since the station is 20 stories under ground and can never connect to anything else (no connection to penn station, pedestrian or train track wise).

My thoughts exactly. If you're going to cancel the project, at least use the money to beef up transit elsewhere. Finally do MOM, or something.

i love how the state of idiots just cancelled another project that would benefit their own people's commute to NYC

then again, they love driving into the city. i just get the worst road rage when stuck behind a dumbass jersey driver that travels 20mph on the left lane of the BQE.

Why the venom towards Chris Christie? This is a 8.7 billion not million dollar project. I do not care what state you are in, that's a sizable chunk of a cash. That's not necessarily the problem, the key is the cost overrun aspect which puts the state on the hook. Pulling the plug on the project sucks, yes. But if that is what it takes to make the parties involved (im looking at you unions) to realize that the agreed upon budget needs to be honored then so be it. What's the alternative, go even further in debt? Why is it so hard to see that debt is BAD! and should be avoided like the plague. I do not care if NJ has to cut the budget of every worthless social program in the entire state to balance the budget, just do it already. A state with the minimal amount government back assets and a balanced budget is infinitely better then one that attempts to see to the needs of everyone but is drowning in debt. Chris Christe is godsend for the state of NJ.

I voted for Gore in 00, Kerry in 04, Obama in 08, but ill be voting for Christie in 12

The issue isn't some union having magic powers to drive up the cost without justification.

The issue is that when you dig underground, you run into things that you didn't expect. Doubly so when you are digging around Manhattan.

NJ, like many states, has to balance the budget by law. There has never been an unbalanced budget in NJ in modern history. There has been unsustainable lending and unsustainable non-contributions to pension funds, by both parties.

When there's no money what can you do?

All these projects sound great on paper but they need funding and when money is scarce you need to make sure you cover the essentials first. But I'm a little confused because I thought all this stimulus money was going to go to projects such as this but I guess it's gone. Oh well.

The first stimulus mostly went to "shovel ready" transportation projects. Of course it takes time to set up massive projects like this, so actual development didn't get much money, while Amtrak did stuff like waste $30 million on building new fences in front of perfectly fine old fences and cutting down trees.

Obama made headlines on Labor Day when he promised a new $50 billion transportation-only stimulus, but there hasn't been a peep about it since, probably because there's no way it'll happen with the GOP taking over Congress in a few weeks.

Another example of Chris Christie undermining public transit in the state. And of course he refuses to raise the gas tax, which hasn't been raised since the 1980s.

Chris Christie has been a complete disaster of a governor. Can't wait to see what he's going to ruin next.

I feel sorry for NJ, all you need to see the future is to look to California and see how they're doing. only thing he needs to cut is his calorie intake.

Yes. California. Coming soon to Caltrain: Electrification! And no more weekend service.

No, transit sucks out here. Even the high-speed rail, if it ever gets built, is being fought every step of the way by Randian suburbia. East coast, you don't know how good you've got it.

People continue to not grasp the concept of "we're broke" . . he's not lying. It shouldn't be the policy to continually go into debt so our aspirations can true. Christie has another hole to dig himself out of next year, as well. This was an easy decision, methinks. He's doing good.

But he IS lying. NJ isn't broke they are just unwilling to commit resources at the level they used to.

He dropped property taxes for some (scratch that, many) of the nations richest millionaires. Then he capped how quickly those property taxes could rise back up by holding the middle class's tax rates hostage- making it hard to reverse.

We're broke is not true. We're no longer willing to insist the upper class provide for their fare share would be more true.

The new tunnel never made a lot of sense, especially considering all the parties involved are ass broke. NJ has been doing a pretty good job of enticing NY businesses to move across the river, why not keep doing that instead of encouraging NJ'ites to commute to NY?

Its called issuing bonds against the toll revenue generated (read history of every bridge or tunnel everywhere) - and even at a dollar a trip, the bonds would probably mature in less than an election cycle.

Both NJ and NY are afraid of money flowing the wrong direction, but their 20 years late on that fear. Broadway & the apple store are different markets than a low tax big box or an outlet mall.

Any discretionary income Hoboken/JC have lost to their proximity to NYC is more than made up for in their property tax increases. Hoboken probably has more bars than a comparable NYC neighborhood anyway. Places like Secacus generate business for NYC - who do you think supports their logistics operations?

Such a damn bad idea. Economics be damned, I guess.

Its one thing to be mindful of a budget. Its another to be too ignorant or scared to invest in a guaranteed income generator.

"$8.7 million tunnel that would have doubled rail capacity between New York and New Jersey."

8.7mill? What dumb fuck... dat shit was a bargain!