A rendering of the proposed 34th Street cavern at the eastern end of the ARC Tunnel. (Via ARCTunnel.com)
After Chris Christie officially killed the ARC Tunnel, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood requested a meeting with the New Jersey governor. This afternoon, the two parties announced a two-week reprieve for the ARC Tunnel plan as federal and New Jersey officials will meet to hash out potential alternatives for the badly-need trans-Hudson rail crossing.
“Governor Christie and I had a good discussion this afternoon, during which I presented a number of options for continuing the ARC tunnel project,” LaHood said. “We agreed to put together a small working group from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the office of NJ Transit Executive Director Jim Weinstein that will review these options and provide a report to Governor Christie within two weeks.”
Christie issued a more guarded statement, and Transportation Nation wonders if this is nothing more than a face-saving measure by LaHood. “The fact that the ARC project is not financially viable and is expected to dramatically exceed its current budget remains unchanged,” Christie said. “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.”
Advocates for the project took this news as a time to reiterate calls for a true review. All indications are that Christie’s office did not actually conduct a line-by-line examination of the project but simply reiterated cost projections that have not been vetted by either the federal government or New Jersey Transit officials. The state has already spent $200 million it cannot get back on this tunnel.
“While a two week extension still seems like a short period of time, we’re heartened to learn the project has been granted a temporary stay of execution,” Bob Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, said. “It is critical all parties stay at the table to find a reasonable solution – ARC is too important. We believe a modest gap exists and urge the State, Port Authority and FTA to close the remaining gap to this project back on track.”
18 comments
Maybe they should privatize the tunnel?
Then again, maybe not
Wonder if there was some choice words about future funding for the state.
$11 b and growing rapidly….this is a lot of money. Doesn’t seem the cost of this tunnel is out of control? How much is too much? Government projects seem to grow grow and grow. Sure, infrastructure is expensive, but there has to be some controls on the engineers and construction firms.
Tunnel’s not the expensive part, it’s the stupid “34th St Station” which is the expensive part. Steer that tunnel into Penn and you come in under budget.
Penn full? Well, there’s something called “Alternative G” which involves connecting the east end of it to Grand Central, which has excess capacity….
Frank, while I am open to the idea that maybe there is a cheaper way to build the tunnel, even at $11B in my opinion the tunnel costs far less than the benefits it will provide. If the existing tunnel is any indication, ARC would benefit the region for 100 years.
Maybe Christie is the smart one. He’ll certainly come out looking pretty good if the Obama administration really wants this project and cuts NJ a better deal to get it done.
I was dismayed at how unconnected the new service is to the present Penn Station. The Wikipedia article (not that I necessarily trust Wikipedia) offers some technical reasons that sound convincing. On the designed-in limitations of the project, I don’t know what to think.
Those technical reasons tend to be standard agency doublespeak. One good smoking gun that they’re wrong is that the original Alt P called for both a cavern and a connection to the existing station. The connection to the existing station got dropped only when cost escalations forced the project to scale down. They decided they were already committed to the cavern, so they dropped the useful part of Alt P instead.
“The fact that the ARC project is not financially viable and is expected to dramatically exceed its current budget remains unchanged,” Christie said.
Is it supposed to be financially viable? This is a public infrastructure improvement! And honestly, seeing the New Meadowlands Stadium cost nearly $2B, it’s not hard to image why this would cost $11B… Just look at that cavern that has to be build under city streets on the Manhattan end. That’s probably $3B right there!
The cavern is in fact over $3 B by itself, and if the project is to be “rightsized”, a lot of transportation advocates have called for removing the cavern.
Add in a link between Penn and Grand Central (less than $3 B) and you have yourself a major improvement akin to Philly’s Center City Connection.
I don’t get why they can’t just reduce the cost by linking the tunnels into the existing Penn complex. Is a new station really necessary at the moment? It’d increase interoperability by going into what’s already there. If I’m not mistaken, it’s not a shortage of tracks at Penn, but tracks into Penn.
Phil has it right. Christie says “a” tunnel project. Not “the” project. Amtrak wants one. NJT needs one. This could all work out.
I’m going to reiterate the suggestion I previously offered:
My believe is that one of the largest costs associated with this project will be the new station below Penn Station/Herald Square. I would not be surprised if the largest cost of the project is not the tunneling under the Hudson or new rail lines in New Jersey rather the new station in Manhattan.
The reasons being:
1) Excavating a cavern so large cannot be done by TBMs
2) Purchasing land/buildings for ground access
3) Station fit out and constructin connections to the existing Penn Station and subway lines.
Thus, I strongly believe that this new tunnel should be linked with the East Side Access and/or the lower level of Grand Central. I don’t think there needs to be any new access to Penn Station – is there any real benefit to linking the two stations?
I realize there may be issues with the Water Tunnel No 3 but without the constraint of a connection to Penn Station, I don’t see why a tunnel could not be realigned to avoid interference.
Geoff, there’s no such thing as “ESA and/or Grand Central.” ESA is a deep cavern, leading to the same enormous cost escalations as ARC. It’s one or the other – and Grand Central is both much easier if you’re trying to avoid hitting the water tunnel and more useful for commuters.
The main question you should be asking yourself about linking Penn and Grand Central is, “Is there any real drawback to linking the two stations?”. The benefits include letting the same train drop people off at both destinations; linking Metro-North to Penn more easily; making through-routing easier; improving East Side-West Side connectivity; and making it easier to move trains from one suburban railroad to another. The cost, relative to just linking to Grand Central, is zero.
I understand that ESA is to Grand Central as the new 34th St Station would be to Penn. What I mean is that there’s a potential to connect a new tunnel to terminal tracks at Grand Central and terminal tracks for ESA. The obvious drawback with a connection to GCT is that it’s a terminal – the vast majority of the tracks are blocked by GCT itself. The only reasonable option to connect to GCT may be to come in from either the east or west side of GCT at the lower track level which given the constraints of midtown Manhattan would be incredibly difficult and expensive. After all, the reason ARC, SAS, and ESA are being tunneled is because the current built-up environment of Manhattan essentially leaves no other choice.
I understand the benefit of interconnectivity but does that have to occur between Penn and GCT? In an ideal world – yes. But the costs would be prohibitively high for the benefits. The compromise is to offer the three commuter transit agencies access to both Penn and GCT/ESA which is what the ARC tunnel in it’s current form lacks.
Any connection from Jersey to Grand Central would have approximately the same engineering complexity as a connection passing through Penn Station, so you might as well add regional connectivity while you’re at it. Given the position of the existing access tracks on the New Jersey side, the connection would come from the south, so the east-west component might as well be under 34th.
Grand Central’s lower level tracks aren’t really blocked. They’re a few meters lower than the food court, so a connection could be build immediately under. In a crunch it’d even be okay to go through the food court – it’s okay to take away a two-track-wide strip and dedicate it to train circulation rather than overpriced food.
Going to both ESA and Grand Central would be very difficult, and require splitting the tunnel into an ESA and a Grand Central level half a mile before the station. This would be difficult and expensive. Orphaning ESA and just going to Grand Central would provide nearly all of the benefit, since NJT trains can already go to Long Island via Penn Station, for a much lower cost.
The estimated costs of a Penn-GCT Lower Level track connection were *less* than the costs of any other “access to the region’s core” option in the original study.
Now that would undoubtedly inflate due to utility relocation, underpinning, etc., but it is the shortest possible tunnel to have this problem with.
And more dramatically, if implemented even half-competently, it would actually cut operating costs while increasing revenues — so it would pay for itself, over some time frame.
ARC will never go into ESA, at least I hope not.
The deep station caverns for ESA and the west side seem to draw the most criticism from technically minded people who follow transportation issues. Someone I know locally does mass transit consulting, he knows as much about this as anyone I know personally and is acquainted with many of the movers and shakers on these projects, and he told me he is still baffled why the MTA chose the deep Grand Central platforms over the alternatives. Maybe Ben could invite someone from the agencies to take some questions.