It’s barely been 24 hours since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie killed the ARC Tunnel, and already the fallout is loud and divisive. New Jersey’s Democratic Senate representatives are slamming Christie for what they see as a national play for headlines while some New Jersey-based activists are blaming New York for its unwillingness to help fund an interstate project. Let’s dive in.
Christie defends his decision
After announcing his decision to kill ARC via a press release, Christie held forth for twenty minutes with members of the press. If you’d like to watch him dance around the issue, he’s made the videos available for all to see.
Basically, as I’ve mentioned before, Christie’s decision came down to the illusion of money. He wanted to, he said, find “a way to work around the unacceptable level of risk and cost that was being asked to be borne by the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey.” He still claims that the feds were putting forth total project costs as high as $13.8 billion even though Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood disputed that total last week, and he claimed that divorcing the Portal Bridge South from the ARC Tunnel funding scheme wasn’t possible.
Christie’s excuses ran deep. When discussing the cost-saving measure of connecting the tunnel to Penn Station instead of the deep cavern beneath 34th Street, he said that his idea didn’t address the real problem. “Even if that aspect of the project was successfully implemented,” he said, “it would not provide a means for covering current cost overruns nor the contingencies necessary to conclude a funding agreement with the FTA, and I’ll get back to that in a second. Simply put, it wouldn’t hold taxpayers harmless in New Jersey for cost increases and cost overruns that have already emerged, and could continue to be even greater as the project moved forward over the next eight years.”
Ultimately, Christie’s 20-minute statement was a national show of economic force designed to say all the right things in an appeal to voters looking for fiscal responsibility. “I cannot place upon the citizens of the State of New Jersey an open-ended letter of credit,” he said, later adding, “This is how we got ourselves into the third highest debt load in America. This is how we got ourselves in to the awful fiscal mess that we’re in, and often during the campaign, I would say that if I were elected I would make the hard decisions that were necessary in order to return our state to fiscal health.”
He didn’t make mention of any future plans to study cheaper alternatives or ways to improve transit access from New Jersey to New York City. We’ll just have to keep waiting for that.
LaHood, Lautenberg respond
Following Christie’s press conference, both New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Secretary LaHood issued statements in response to the development. Lautenberg’s was more vehement than LaHood’s.
Says Lautenberg:
“The Governor was given a deal from the federal government on Sunday that put no extra imposition on the state of New Jersey for its obligation to the ARC Tunnel project, and the Governor refused it. It was clear from the beginning that Governor Christie planned to kill the ARC Tunnel no matter what. In doing so, the Governor has once again put politics over performance.
“This is a tragic day in New Jersey’s history. Two weeks ago, Governor Christie made the biggest public policy blunder in New Jersey’s history. Today he repeated it. Today he killed the prospect for improving New Jersey’s economy and creating thousands of new jobs. He increased the amount of toxic fumes that will be discharged from idling cars stuck in traffic, and he took away an opportunity for New Jersey housing values to go up.
“I was a CEO and I know you need to be at work to do your job, and Governor Christie is out stumping in other states and not doing his job at home. While the Governor is on political missions in Indiana, California, Ohio and other states, he is ducking the needs of people in New Jersey. In just nine months of being in office, the Governor has bungled the opportunity to score $400 million dollars for our students and now he has lost over $6 billion in transportation funding.
“New Jersey Transit is coming off one of the worst summers for delays in recent memory. 1,400 delays were recorded this summer, and just this week a minor derailment caused hour-long delays for thousands of commuters. Delays and derailments are only going to get worse on our aging infrastructure and thanks to the Governor, New Jersey commuters shouldn’t count on new rail service options for decades to come.
“The Governor has put politics before performance, and it is the people of New Jersey who will pay the high price.”
In a “Truths and Myths” section of the press release, Lautenberg starts to get a little sloppy with the facts. He disputes the idea that Christie is “killing the tunnel because the state cannot afford it” and instead claims thats Christie torpedoed the project only to “move $1.25 billion in New Jersey Turnpike Authority funds dedicated to the ARC Tunnel to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund.” The reality is a mix of the two.
LaHood chose a more diplomatic approach. “I am extremely disappointed in Gov. Christie’s decision to abandon the ARC tunnel project, which is a devastating blow to thousands of workers, millions of commuters and the state’s economic future,” he said. “The governor’s decision to stop work on this project means commuters — who would have saved 45 minutes each day thanks to the ARC tunnel — will instead see no end to traffic congestion and ever-longer wait times on train platforms. Our team has worked hard over the last several weeks to present Governor Christie with workable solutions to bring the ARC tunnel to life.”
Looking at New York
Meanwhile, Mary Forsberg points her finger at our side of the river. In an Op-Ed for The Times, Forsberg questions why New York wasn’t willing to help fund the ARC Tunnel. “Where, specifically, is New York’s contribution to the effort? Original estimates put the project’s cost at $8.7 billion, with New Jersey chipping in $2.7 billion and the federal government and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey each contributing $3 billion,” she writes. “In other words, New Jersey would have to shell out more than its fair share for the tunnel project, while New York, which stands to gain in a number of big ways, would pay nothing.”
Forsberg, the director of research at the New Jersey Policy Perspective, calls upon New Jersey to rais its gas tax, but she also cites the tax revenue disparities between New York and New Jersey due to the tax credits granted to commuters. Because New York is in a comparatively better tax position, she urges the Empire State to help out the Garden State in realizing a project that benefits both. “To match New Jersey’s contribution, New York should dedicate the billions of dollars of income taxes that it annually collects from New Jersey residents toward construction of the tunnel. That way each party would have a quarter in the kitty,” she writes.
The state though already fronts numerous costs borne by commuters. We do not enforce a commuter tax and pay for all of the services — police, fire, transportation, etc. — that accrue as a result of the numerous people who commute into the city each day. Some would argue that we already pay our fair share of costs, but Forsberg’s argument is not without merit.
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