Could high-speed rail plans keep some iteration of the ARC Tunnel alive?
The ARC Tunnel just won’t die. Even though New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie killed it dead, even though the feds are now asking for $271 million and a full accounting of expenses, the idea of another cross-Hudson rail crossing is one that won’t stay dead. For the region, of course, that is a positive development even if it might be another two decades before ARC Jr. can start servicing the city.
We join this story now in progress. Shortly after Christie officially pulled the plug on the ARC Tunnel, various advocacy groups and politicians continued to push for a sensible transit policy, and the effort seemed to coalesce around comments Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican in line to chair the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the wake of James Oberstar’s defeat. While most Republicans do not look favorably upon the northeast, Mica is a supporter of high-speed rail and urged the Obama Administration to reexamine its plans for HSR.
In effect, as a comment in Progressive Railroading noted, Mica has advocated for a consolidation of the plans around the profitable and popular Northeast Corridor route. “I am a strong advocate of high-speed rail, but it has to be where it makes sense,” he said. “The administration squandered the money, giving it to dozens and dozens of projects that were marginal at best to spend on slow-speed trains to nowhere.”
In a sense, if America is serious about starting a high-speed rail network while simultaneously improving travel along the Northeast Corridor, focusing federal efforts in the northeast makes sense. Other states have, as Yonah Freemark recently explored in depth, been lukewarm or downright unreceptive toward Obama’s HSR plans, and if the northeast can be the staging crowd, albeit an expensive one, who are we reject the dollars?
Yesterday, Amtrak through a wrinkle into the scheming as they let word drop that they are interested in reviving ARC as a possible high-speed rail tunnel. “We’re looking into common project opportunities with NJ Transit,” Amtrak Spokesman Cliff Cole said. “We’re not sure if there are even any opportunities that would work but we’ve been asked to sit down and talk with them and we’ve begun that process.”
Other Amtrak officials spoke of their efforts as a salvage mission. “A partnershipwould be the immediate strategy to get two tracks as soon as possible,” Al Engel, Amtrak Vice President of High Speed Rail said. “We’re beginning to explore what value there is in the ARC work that can be salvaged.”
New Jersey Transit characterized these talks as very preliminary, and Gov. Christie reiterated his stance on the ARC Tunnel. “To repeat yet again, the ARC Tunnel project is over,” his statement said. “While no new conversations have taken place between Amtrak and NJ Transit, the Governor previously tasked both DOT Commissioner James Simpson and NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein to work with the pertinent partners to explore fiscally viable alternatives for a trans-Hudson tunnel. As such, we will continue to explore solutions to the trans-Hudson transportation challenge.”
Still, there’s a chance that something resembling the ARC Tunnel could pop up again sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, sooner is all relative. Although it’s going to take New Jersey up to a year to shutdown work on the ARC Tunnel, Amtrak doesn’t believe the second generation of the ARC project would see revenue service until 2030 later. The government would have to conduct environmental studies and design work before securing funding, and transit activists are going to work to ensure that the next ARC Tunnel does not suffer from the dead-end, deep-cavern design flaw that plagued the version Christie killed.
These developments though do present something of a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The National Association of Railroad Passengers has continued to call for a new trans-Hudson rail tunnel. Even if we have to wait 20 years, the ball can still be rolling on this vital infrastructure policy. A sensible pattern of federal investment and a willingness to cooperate from New Jersey could keep ARC hopes alive in some form or another.
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New York State is borrowing $billions to add capacity by building East Side Access. The federal government is contributing, what, 30% of the total or less?
Under the new plan, I suppose NJ would pay nothing. And it would simply take away Penn Station slots from the LIRR, eliminating MetroNorth to Penn possiblities.
I would be viligent against a ripoff of New York State. It wouldn’t be the first time.
If New Jersey Transit is going to take Penn Station slots from the LIRR, then the Port Authority of the Feds should contribute more to the East Side Access project that makes those slots available, and leave slots enough for MetroNorth Hudson and New Haven Line service to Penn. And pay to make that service possible. What would it take, besides electrification of the line up the West Side?
With two more tracks and smart, cooperative scheduling, why wouldn’t there be enough room for everyone in there? NJT may just need to through serve beyond Penn.
Connecting a new Hudson rail tunnel with the rest of the Northeast Corridor at the very least wins it more support from states to the north and south, since it’s now useful to people living in and commuting between states to the north and south. That’s why having the original ARC plan dead-end 175 feet below Macy’s instead of some connection to Penn Station and/or Grand Central was such a boondoggle, since it was both wildly over-budget and had no other outside support other than New Jersey commuters.
If New Jersey decides to not pony up, can we get a TRUE express line out of Penn Station that doesn’t make its first stop until it crosses into either Pa. or Delaware? How fast would our trip to DC be if we didn’t have to make any stops in the Garden (sic) State?
About 2 minutes faster, tops. Most Acela trains only stop at Newark, which is located right next to a very sharp curve.
I think Mica realizes 2 things:
1. Building in the most effective location first means giving the best demonstration for the public
2. Putting all your money into one location means actually finishing a real high speed rail line, instead of spreading it around the whole country. The northeast is full of donor states anyway, I doubt redoing the northeast corridor will even balance the last 5 years of donations to the Federal government.
Its my understanding that the ARC tunnel was to be north of the current North River Tunnels. If they are to construct this under the guise of being for hsr/amtrak, I would think the best idea is to run it under GCT and continue underground until into the Bronx before linking to the NEC to New Rochelle.
Yes that’s a lot of tunnel, but to eliminate Penn Station and use GCT and then run right to the Bronx would eliminate the need to run into Queens and loop back and forth through Sunnyside and over the Hell Gate Bridge. You could cut trip times by 25 minutes without even allowing faster travel.
And of course keeping it out of Penn gives the F you very much to NJ.
First, the ARC tunnel was to be south of the current tunnels. The Manhattan cavern would be north of Penn, though.
Second, the benefits of skipping Penn are zero. The cheapest and maximally connective way to build ARC is to build it to Penn, and then on to Grand Central.
Third, the curves on the Harlem Line are slightly worse than on the Hell Gate Line. To say nothing of the higher commuter traffic to deal with.
Thanks Alon. I wasn’t aware they were actually south.
The connecting to both Penn and GCT, would that really work for Amtrak/HSR? Would you alternate destinations by the next train goes here and then the next there? Or would you stop at both stations?
As for heading north, i was suggesting tunneling all the way to Bronx to meet up with the NEC there. Not heading up the park avenue tunnel out of GCT and up the Harlem line. It is my understanding that the Park Ave Tunnels are already at capacity for rush hour and is part of why they’re hoping east side access will allow some New Haven line trains to move over to Penn. I know this is an awful lot of tunneling, but it was just a random idea.
Stop at both stations. The dwell time for commuter trains is dominated by people getting in and out, so stopping at multiple downtown stations is essentially free.
Amtrak shouldn’t use Grand Central – it should use the existing track, even with the Queens detour. The reason is that the curve radius between Penn and Grand Central would have to be very low because of all the building foundations, potentially too low for some high-speed trains to use. The Hell Gate Line has more curves, but they’re higher-radius.
Any upgrade to the NEC should start with the cheapest speed boosts and proceed down the list. There are some places where new tunnels are useful, like Bridgeport, but near New York, the extreme cost of tunneling means that it’s best to just upgrade the Hell Gate Line and spend the big bucks elsewhere.
There’s also a spot in eastern CT where Acela seems to slow to a crawl and passes by a marina as if it the speed was governed by signal timers. I think it’s Groton or New London. I was sitting on the train wondering if I was on the Acela Express or the J M Z coming off the Willy B Bridge!
Eastern CT is the easiest: between New Haven and the RI/CT state line, I-95 is almost perfectly straight.
The real problem is western CT – west of New Haven, there’s basically no good alignment. Best that can be done is weaving back and forth between the legacy line, I-95, and a couple of very high-cost greenfield segments when there’s no alternative.
Thank you all, for you input. I particularly like giving NJ the F in some way, hopefully a big one, for jettisoning this project out of our lifetimes, effectively. Let us hope they will come to despise their idiotic, car-loving governor and his brainless party.
It is furthermore high time to connect Penn Station and GCT with a rail link. Why has it not happened over the last, what, 100 years?
Penn Station-Grand Central shuttle? The current most feasible way of getting from one to the other is Shuttle to Times Square and then taking either the 7th or 8th Ave lines south, total time of about 10 minutes. If they created a Shuttle train that connected the two, the time could be shortened to 3 or so minutes and would alleviate the issues of East Side Access (why they didn’t spend the $$$ on this rather than the ridiculous actual East Side Access project….). Align it going up 8th Ave (below current tracks), east on 39th, north on Madison to 42nd.
Somewhat extensive, but feasible and would get rid of these NYP VS. GCT dramas (as you could take a train to one and easily make a connection to the other…even make it outside of NYCT fare control and have NJT, Amtrak, and LIRR tickets allow for free transfer)
It’s a real blast with luggage, too!
For good regional rail, commuter trains would have to go through. The only way you can have a successful service that relies on connecting from Penn to Grand Central via a separate shuttle is if the transfer involves minimal walking, preferably with cross-platform configuration, and is timed. Building the infrastructure for such a shuttle transfer would also allow trains to run through, which would be preferable because through-stations have higher throughput than terminals.
The ultimate solution seems like it should be driven by the feds, but with ample participation of LIRR MNR and NJT, all of which can benefit greatly from an expansion and should be included in the planning. If Christie doesn’t mind somebody else spending money on his behalf as his idea of saving money (and the typical Republican matra by the way, see also the Nassau County exec), then this could all be a whopping success for our region.
But I still say that 1 piece of this then needs to have a SI spur to the NEC!
It would also be appropriate for each state on the NEC to begin contributing to its operation, refurbishment and new infrastructure, as those of us on the left coast have been doing in WA, OR and CA
Question for Alon or Ben K or expert type, if the Manhattan deep cavern design, and terminal location for ARC were so f*ing stupid, then why, after years and years of studies, were they selected? These planning and engineering consultants usually have reasons.
The short answers: agency turf, and money is easier to come by than precise planning.
The long answer: the Major Investment Study – the one that pointed to Alt G as the best – expressed fear of cost escalations coming from real estate acquisitions for the Penn-GCT tunnel. Real estate is annoying to planners in ways that construction cost escalations aren’t. On top of it, Metro-North was hostile to the idea, and NJT never really tried to maximize the benefits of through-running, which would involve too much interagency cooperation. A cavern is very expensive, but it’s deep underground so the only people the consultants have to deal with are people working on the project.
Once they made the initial selection for Alt P, they felt like they had to build a cavern to provide adequate station capacity. Again, it’s what planners are used to. Rebuilding the concourses for higher throughput as the LIRR did in the 90s, or through-routing onto LIRR territory to allow for greater throughput, involves a lot of planner headache, to make sure everything goes smoothly. It’s much simpler to overbuild than to make maximum use of existing resources.
Alerted by a commercial on TV: High Speed Rail conference in NYC next week. To attend will cost you at least one and a half grand and then some. And Alon has GOT to be happy that there are few speakers from outside of the U.S.
As for the infeasible Penn to Grand Central link, [insert expletive here] that water tunnel!
I wish policy makers would also look at a way to get bus traffic across town to an east side terminal. Buses are not sexy, but the PA terminal takes in an enormous number of people every day. If there were some elevated or underground connection to a new depot on the east side, that would be a huge benefit to commuter traffic as well as to intercity travelers. You’d just need a single lane going east and another west, if you stacked the two lanes you’d only have a roadway maybe 15 feet wide, which could easily be held up on the median of 34th street or 42nd street. A roadway like that, connected to a new bus depot, over some subway station on the east side, would have to cost just a fraction of what ARC would cost. I think we need both, but buses are really not being looked at as an additional mover here.
I think you hit upon why people aren’t looking at getting buses across town: There’s no room for a terminal and the costs of building a tunnel would be cost-prohibitive for buses to say the least. The city is trying to turn 34th St. into a bus-only transitway with Select Bus Service. There’s talk about using it for some commuter buses, but I’m not sure that goes as far as you’d like it to.
I think City officials would go white with rage at the concept of an elevated busway! But really, I think it would be something that would have enormous practical benefits and could be thrown up pretty quickly. I’d run it through the PA bus terminal, so it’s already elevated, no engine noise from buses climbing to the roadway, and run it along the median of 42nd street. There would not be any entrances or exits in Manhattan except the PA bus terminal and an east side terminal. On the east side, you’d have to find some building to condem to use for the terminal, but you’d have ground floor retail so it wouldn’t look particuarly bad from street level. You could get a bus across town in about 5 minutes this way. This would also allow bus access to an east side terminal for buses using the Midtown tunnel from Queens. Again, if you built an access road, maybe just one reversible lane for that one, with buses using surface streets to return east via to the tunnel during the a.m. rush, you can get buses over to the terminal very quickly.
Tunneling would only be needed if the PA decided, as it should, to expand XBL Lincoln Tunnel access by building a new dedicated tube from Manhattan to a spot in Jersey west of the Palisades, perhaps all the way to the Turnpike. People in the know are well aware that the current bus approach into NY during such times as end of weekend and during the pm rush, is compleltely unreliable.
Who’s Tom Oberstar?