Deep-cavern ARC station, we hardly knew ye. (Click to enlarge)
It’s now been over 48 hours since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced the end of the ARC Tunnel project, and the reactions are still coming fast and furious. Let’s dive in.
New York pols put in call for unused billions for MTA support
We’ll start with the juicy stuff. Since Christie sacrificed $3 billion in federal financing when he torpedoed the tunnel, the feds have some money to spend. Not missing a beat, New York and the MTA are jumping into the fray. With a $10 billion hole in its capital budget and perennial operating deficits, the MTA is going to make a play for some of the money, and both Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer have called upon more federal contributions to both the Second Ave. Subway and the East Side Access project. “We will certainly stake our claim,” MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder said.
Putting the Port Authority dollars to use
The other $3 billion contribution — this one from the Port Authority — is now sitting unused as well, and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign has a solution: Spend some of the money on improving cross-Hudson bus service. Here’s their thinking:
According to ARC’s final Environmental Impact Statement, the project would have shifted daily 11,530 trans-Hudson bus trips and 31,590 trans-Hudson car trips to rail by 2030. Assuming an average bus capacity of 35 passengers, more than 1,230 additional buses will be needed to meet that demand in the absence of ARC. Another 473 buses will be needed to accommodate the baseline projected increase of 16,538 bus trips that would occur even with the tunnel. That’s another 1,703 buses needed by 2030 to accommodate this growth in cross-Hudson trips.
Currently, NJ Transit has a total of 2,125 buses statewide. If half of new trips are on NJ Transit buses (with the other half on private carriers), the agency would have to increase its existing bus fleet by at least 850 buses, or 40%. That’s a major investment.
And with the Lincoln Tunnel’s Express Bus Lane and the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) already at or near capacity, there’s just no way for the existing infrastructure to accommodate 1,703 more buses. As the ARC project’s final environmental impact statement points out, “bus service levels would remain the same as existing conditions… due to capacity limitations at PABT.” In other words, drastic improvements are necessary to allow more buses to enter Manhattan. Luckily, the Port Authority is already considering plans to increase bus capacity through the Lincoln Tunnel and at the PABT.
The real issue, as TSTC notes, is access through the tunnels. Since New Jersey isn’t expanding tunnel capacity any time soon, buses must have a true dedicated access lane into and out of the Lincoln Tunnel. Until that happens, buses will be slowed by the same traffic that makes crossing the Hudson River so infuriating.
Pointing a finger a Gov. Christie but also Ray LaHood
Meanwhile, as project supporters try to make sense of the politics behind Christie’s decision, many see inconsistencies in his insistence on toeing the line when it came to cost overruns. As Mobilizing the Region explores, Christie has been more than willing to eschew financial responsibility on road projects.
In fact, shortly before canceling the ARC Tunnel, his administration borrowed $2 billion to pay for a misguided turnpike-widening project. Similar to the ARC project, the turnpike-widening plan has seen its cost go from $1.4 billion in 2004 to $3.6 billion in 2009, but Christie has bee notably silent on those cost overruns and budgetary projections.
Mark J. Magyar expands on this finger-pointing and explores the ARC Tunnel’s demise on both a state and national level. The Rutgers professor is more than willing to blame many prominent state officials for the ARC debacle, and he lays out the case in exquisite detail.
Finally, Ray LaHood enters the picture too. On both the DOT Fastlane blog and in the opinion pages of The Star-Ledger, the Secretary of Transportation lays into Christie. He says:
Against the backdrop of these enduring legacies, Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to terminate America’s largest transportation project was particularly disappointing. Unfortunately, his choice comes with profound consequences for New Jersey, the New York metropolitan region and our nation as a whole.
Tens of thousands of jobs that the tunnel would have created will be lost. Future New Jerseyans will face shrinking property values, suffocating road traffic, interminable train delays and increasing air pollution. A $3.358 billion federal investment in the region’s economic future will move elsewhere.
Yet, as Andrea Bernstein writes at Transportation Nation, this call from LaHood is too little, too late. The feds too are complacent in the death of a project they touted. “There was,” she wrote, “a substantive debate to be had here [on the planning and impact of the tunnel], one that is now lost to the sands of time…because neither party released full details until after a decision had been made.”
27 comments
Maybe now the PA can get off its duff and use some of this $$ to replace the circa-1928 Goethals Bridge, the major (and only) artery between Elizabeth and Staten Island. The damn bridge was built for Model T’s, with to small (10-foot wide) lanes in each direction and no shoulders. It’s downright scary to drive across this span, especially if you’ve got an 18-wheeler next to you with about six inches of clearance. The PA has been studying this for years and should build a new bridge with room for BRT or some other bus/rail line from SI to Elizabeth, with connections to Newark and the airport.
i’m not sure why there is effort to explain Christie’s decision as being anything besides the usual anti-transit crap from GOP governors. They continue to ignore economics with a long disproven belief that independent car ownership and expanded road capacity is the American Way™.
Because in countries where $10 billion buys 57 kilometers of tunnel and not 5, many conservatives are not anti-transit.
And building and funding cars is still less cost effective.
But American conservatives are increasingly anti-economics. They don’t understand the financial value of transit, centralized healthcare, or progressive taxing.
But frankly following in our footsteps, conservatives in foreign countries are increasingly are increasingly anti-transit. Witness Toronto’s new mayor that not only wants to stop building transit — he wants to rip up the newly built light rail! (He’s a bit of odd duck that wants to rip it up and replace it with subways, making more room for cars because he doesn’t think the transit system should extend beyond the core of the city. Actually that’s a very 1950s idea too I suppose.)
Political dialog would do a lot better without all the innocuous labels. If conservatism is, as I understand it, about carefully planned change, tradition, and deference to the status quo, the American approximation is more do-nothing waffler Harry Reid than recalcitrant Christine O’Donnell.
You don’t need to use Canada as your example – its conservatives perfectly mirror American conservatives. Even in Switzerland, there are anti-rail cultural conservatives, namely the right-wing Swiss People’s Party. The difference is that Swiss parties that are merely fiscally conservative, such as the FDP, support rail as a cost-effective form of transportation.
But since you brought up Canada, let’s talk about how Calgary, a city whose Parliamentary delegation is entirely Conservative, has invested hundreds of millions in light rail, and now has a higher transit mode share than any US metro region except New York.
“Currently, NJ Transit has a total of 2,125 buses statewide. If half of new trips are on NJ Transit buses (with the other half on private carriers), the agency would have to increase its existing bus fleet by at least 850 buses, or 40%. That’s a major investment.” -Port Authority
Unfortunately, the PANYNJ has some of its info wrong. All of the private commuter buses from New Jersey: Lakeland, DeCamp, Academy, that head to New York, are all owned by NJ Transit but leased to private carriers to operate. Look at the small text on the side of the bus. I’m not sure why the Port Authority excluded them in their statement.
What I’m frustrated with right now is that facially Christie is acting like he is saving money, but he is essentially dumping this money into another project…and he took out additional loans to pay for that, and to make it worse that project is over budget as well! Why not put the money saved in the pension funds which are vastly underfunded if he was going to be saving money, or that jersey is broke.
“In fact, shortly before canceling the ARC Tunnel, his administration borrowed $2 billion to pay for a misguided turnpike-widening project. Similar to the ARC project, the turnpike-widening plan has seen its cost go from $1.4 billion in 2004 to $3.6 billion in 2009, but Christie has bee notably silent on those cost overruns and budgetary projections.”
The Turnpike widening initiative was commenced by Corzine and it already over one year into construction. To say that it is unnecessary implies that you never leave Manhattan. There are few projects in NJ that are more necessary than this. The project is toll financed, as part of a two-step increase that is paying part of ARC! The bonds issued are paid by toll revenue, there is no general fund borrowing for it. Finally, I have no idea where you got 3.9 billion from, I think it’s maybe slightly more than 1/2 that. Note how you can do a 20+ mile highway project end-to-end for less than 1/3 of this train tunnel, and have users fund quite literally 100% of the cost. I’d like to see you comment on that.
The cost of the turnpike and Garden State plans are all detailed right here with links to the proof. The total costs of those two projects have gone from $1.4 billion to $3.6 billion, and you know what’s going to happen? Traffic will be just as bad. If you want a project that is “more necessary” than widening some roads, it’s adding rail capacity, something that will actually improve access to and from New Jersey.
As for your claim that users will “quite literally” fund 100 percent of the cost, that too is wrong. The turnpike authority draws in just over $1 billion in revenue annually. This project is going to cost them $3.6 billion alone. The math clearly doesn’t work out.
“The cost of the turnpike and Garden State plans are all detailed right here with links to the proof.”
Seriously, the TSTC? Got it. First of all you are now talking two highways not one, with something like 80 miles of widening. Any 3.6 number must be for the full capital plan, which includes a ton of stuff besides these projects an includes ARC.
“As for your claim that users will “quite literally” fund 100 percent of the cost, that too is wrong. The turnpike authority draws in just over $1 billion in revenue annually.”
Ben, that’s like saying you can’t afford $150,000 house if you make 60 grand. A billion a year services 30 year bonds in an amount well over $3.6 billion. Do you think Continental Airlines buys a 737 out of one year passenger revenue for the flights the plane makes?
“$3.6 billion, and you know what’s going to happen? Traffic will be just as bad.”
Right, trucks will use the new truck lanes to take joy rides up and down NJ because they will love the free pavement. People will quite their jobs and take gratuitous trips to Wilmington because they won’t be backed up 12 miles by Cranbury. If your argument is that we should make the road one lane in each direction because it’s never enough, fine, but I see this as a response, about 20 years overdue to real demand that exists and should be serviced, kind of like the train tunnel. Only in this case it’s toll-financed and will be done in 5 years, on schedule and on budget. Again, try to explain why if you care to.
Here you go:
In 2004, the turnpike project was going to cost $1.4 billion. (Source: NY Times)
In early 2009, the cost, according to the turnpike’s own website, was $2.5 billion. (Source: NJ Turnpike Widening website)
In mid-2009, the cost went up to $2.7 billion. (Source: NJ.com)
A billion a year services 30 year bonds in an amount well over $3.6 billion.
You do realize that the same logic applies to the ARC Tunnel too, right? If NJ Transit doubles its capacity across the Hudson, ridership and thus fare revenue will go up, and that fare revenue can be used to issue bonds. It’s the same logic you’re using to defend the turnpike-widening program — which is fine because that’s how capital projects should work. But you can’t say that the turnpike project, for which Christie has had to borrow more is perfect when it’s just as flawed economically as you’d claim the ARC Tunnel was.
In mid-2009, the cost went up to $2.7 billion. (Source: NJ.com)
They are just citing headline figures, look at the capital plan. In any event, the project is financed by drivers’ tolls, so what do you care? What I see are project elements coming in under engineer estimates.
“You do realize that the same logic applies to the ARC Tunnel too, right?”
Uh, no, because every train ride is loss making on an operating basis for NJTransit. Every car trip is profit-making on an operating basis for the Turnpike. This is not a difficult concept. NJTransit runs at a subsidy and is not self-supporting and you can’t finance a project via losses.
It’s not true that every train ride is loss-making. You’re confusing allocated and avoidable costs. If a train run ends tomorrow, then the operating costs saved are the avoidable costs. The allocated costs are additional operating costs, for example administration and station staff, which aren’t route- or train-specific but are divided among the trains based on some formula; per rider, per car-mile, and per passenger-mile are the most popular. It’s perfectly possible for to cover avoidable costs out of fares while still losing money when allocated costs are considered.
Ben, the F stands for Flat Earth Society. Don’t feed the troll!
Instead of getting nonsense spin from the anti-road lobbying group TSTC, here’s a link to the Tpk’s actual capital plan.
http://www.state.nj.us/turnpik.....ts_000.pdf
Ah, here’s a link to some more work under estimates. Enjoy. Feel free to post similar stories from mass transit projects, we’d all love to see them.
http://www.app.com/article/201.....g-projects
Ben posted links to under-estimate works for SAS a few months ago; you can try looking for them in the archives. Of course, both both SAS and the Turnpike, the estimates were so inflated that coming in under them is nowhere near enough…
Good riddance. They won’t be spending money on a dead end tunnel to nowhere. If it doesn’t have a rail connection to the existing Penn Station its useless. PATH would be faster than 20 minutes on an escalator going to the center of the earth.
I’m figuring that all public projects must have in their budgets a contingency allowance. Anyone who’s watched a few episodes of This Old House knows that there is no way to perfectly predict the cost of a project. So when the phrase “cost overrun” is used, I assume it means beyond whatever amount was originally budgeted for the unplanned.
If every effort to do public works in the US faces this problem, and if as Alon charges they’re all in the first place more expensive than they should be, then maybe it’s time for a national commission to study this and find out where the problems are. It’s easy to make fun of commissions, but they can be quite successful–the Challenger investigation was extremely so. An academic or local gov’t study group here and there may find some answers, but will never have the clout or credibility to get things fixed.
Get some of the best people studying this, and when they come up with answers we don’t like we can ignore the answers and subject the experts to public humiliation.
The problem with doing a commission is that the people running the commission are not going to be Richard Feynman. With a few exceptions (Vukan Vuchic tops my list), the top experts in the world on how to build transit are not American, and those experts know operating practices, not necessarily costs. Just look at the rent-seeking crap the RPA peddles. I highly doubt the any national commission would be prepared to have people from Spain, France, Switzerland, and Japan scrutinize US management, which is what’s really needed.
As much as I am pro rail, I really feel like putting the money to the turnpike project was the right thing to do since it was further along and cheaper all things considered.
I would rather to have seen Amtrak and NJT come up with a new proposal and and built something that went into penn, would have probably been cheaper for everyone. Its a much needed project but seriously if the costs did go over 15 billion it would have been a tough pill to swallow. You never know how project costs balloon, just look at ESA.
Still no matter what I would never move to Jersey because of how crappy the transit solutions are for them. I’m glad I take the LIRR and get to go into GCT soon enough.
Wonder if anybody considered a NYC bypass for Amtrak. Really, does everyone riding from Boston and CT actually need to go thru NYC if they’re on their way to Philly or DC? How about a rail line across the Tappan Zee or a dedicated rail bridge over the Hudson that bypasses NYC altogether so some trains can go directly to DC/Boston without going thru NYC? The corresponding amount of Amtrak trains no using the current Hudson tunnel can be added to NJT commuter lines. For those traveling to DC or Boston from NYC, have trains leave Penn Station for those destinations as needed.
Way, way, way too expensive. The cost of going through New York is zero – the infrastructure is already there. Also competitive on time, since New York is directly between Jersey and Connecticut, with no detouring required. Also completely counterproductive, because you’re splitting frequencies.
Governor Christie likely did NYC a favor. Hopefully those funds can be collected by New York and used on the Second Avenue Subway (or the LIRR or grand central). Really, if the city and state are able to match federal contributions, there’s no reason they can’t start work on phases 2 and 3 of the second avenue subway.
The PA waas seeking to expand the WTC to Newark PATH line by using 10 cra trains instead of eight car trains (they were actually down to 7 car trains for years due to rolling stock degrading with some destroyed on 9/11). That project would be a fairly quick boost of one tunnel’s capacity by 25%. The PA does not have the money to undertake the needed work at Grove Street and Harrison, but maybe now it can use some freed up money.
My thoughts exactly. I’m glad I don’t (and never will) live in Jersey.