Trans-Hudson Tunnel Not Dead Yet

Rendering of the Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel

After tempting commuters with the prospect of doubled NJ Transit rail capacity and then killing it a year after construction started, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood managed to convince Governor Chris Christie to think the plan over yet again.

Christie has agreed to a two-week review of of the project after LaHood traveled to Trenton to talk to the governor. The project had already gotten $6 billion in funds from the federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but Christie said the $2.7 billion needed from his state was too much to spend. Christie said in a statement, "The fact that the ARC project is not financially viable and is expected to dramatically exceed its current budget remains unchanged However, this afternoon Secretary LaHood presented several options to potentially salvage a trans Hudson tunnel project. At the secretary’s request, I’ve agreed to have executive director of NJ Transit Jim Weinstein and members from his team work with U.S. Department of Transportation staff to study those options over the next two weeks."

Paul Krugman at the New York Times reeled over Christie's decision to kill the tunnel project, calling it "a perfect symbol of how America has lost its way." He wrote, "It was a destructive and incredibly foolish decision on multiple levels. But it shouldn’t have been all that surprising. We are no longer the nation that used to amaze the world with its visionary projects. We have become, instead, a nation whose politicians seem to compete over who can show the least vision, the least concern about the future and the greatest willingness to pander to short-term, narrow-minded selfishness." And who has the best photoshop skills!

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By Jaya Saxena in News on October 9, 2010 2:40 PM

Comments [rss]

Neverhaditsogood

Improving the economic infrastructure is never financially viable to a Republican unless he and his thug cronies get a cut of the action.

John L

+1

ianmac47

Sadly this is all about raiding the tunnel's budget to replenish the transportation fund without raising the gas tax. Simply, he is shuttering a capital project to fill in potholes.

Its slightly more complicated-- in that no budget items like the 'dedicated' gas tax are actually dedicated budget items in New Jersey, and the bigger problem is that for two decades no one has raised the gas tax in the state, so to pay for needed maintenance, the transportation trust fund has borrowed ever more money while draining down its capital.

The only way this project is saved is if Christie can pay for maintenance on the state's roads, bridges and other infrastructure without raising the gas tax or without the funds otherwise allocated to ARC.

silver

The governor is just trying to extort more federal money from Barack O'Stimulus.

Project should be killed because its a tunnel to nowhere. No connection to penn station, or grand central or anywhere else.

kevd

True.

34th St. and 6th Avenue in midtown Manhattan is precisely nowhere. Nothing goin' on near there - no jobs, no culture. Nothin'.

•end of sarcasm•

The station would be an extension of Penn - with access to the rest of Penn and at least 7 subway lines - 10 if you include the A, C & E.

By this flawed logic, all of Metro-North leads to "nowhere" because Grand Central is a terminal.

Såkandulæredet

I think Christie purposely did this as a way to put the ball back in his court and give him more power over contract pricing.

I could be wrong though.

Såkandulæredet

This was my analogy in the other comment I made:

"It's like when you go to Chinatown and you start looking eagerly at some sunglasses on display, the guy will say $15. But when you start walking away especially after spending a lot of time with the guy... poof the sunglasses go down to $10, then if you get far enough away maybe $5. Maybe this is what Christie is doing."