The two final proposed replacements for the Tappan Zee Bridge.
New York State has put forward an ambitious $16-billion plan to replace the Tappan Zee with a multi-modal bridge. The new structure will feature rail and bus lanes and will improve transportation in between northern New Jersey, upstate New York and the metropolitan region. The state, however, has not allocated funding for the project in its next five-year capital plan, and Gov. David Paterson, in the waning days of his time in Albany, is searching for a funding solution.
To that end, Paterson floated the idea of folding the Tappan Zee into the Port Authority. The newly-rich PA could spend some of its ARC allocation on the bridge replacement, and New York and New Jersey would split the toll proceeds. Even though the bridge does not go into New Jersey and advocates feared it would be, in the words of the RPA’s Neysa Pranger, “a tough sell,” Paterson’s people believed that the bridge’s importance to the region would be a compelling enough reason to move forward.
“The ball’s in their court right now. But if they’re ready, I’m ready,” Paterson said of New Jersey. “And if they’d like to do it with the next governor, that’s fine, too.”
And guess what Gov. Chris Christie said? Well, he said no no no. “I can’t make this any clearer to New York than this: Stop screwing with us, OK?” he said. “You’re not going to come and pick our pockets. New Jersey’s not going to permit it anymore.”
He went on: “Gov. Rockefeller, may he rest in peace, decided that he wanted to keep all that money to himself. Well you want to keep all the money to yourself? Then you pay for the repairs by yourself. Unlike the George Washington Bridge, unlike the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, where we share the toll revenue and we share the cost of maintenance — like the airports.”
Christie appears to be ignoring the part of Paterson’s proposal where New Jersey gets to keep the toll money, but it’s not a surprise that he shot this idea down. What is surprising is his reaction. It’s tough to find anyone who thinks New York is “screwing” with New Jersey or picking the state’s pockets. New York provides jobs for workers in the region who take home their earnings to spend in New Jersey. We don’t capture revenue through a commuter tax any longer, and we’ve put up with increased congestion due to the influx of cars from across the Hudson River.
At some point, New Jersey and New York are going to have to work together to solve the transportation problem. If Christie and Paterson can’t, maybe Christie and Cuomo can. If not, we’ll just have to wait out these obstinate politicians. The traffic and transportation problems will remain long after Christie out of office.
37 comments
somehow, everything christie says now seems pitched to a national rightwing audience.
Remember, all rightwing Repubs are VICTIMS of us evil NY liberals. Of course we’re pickpockets; we’re blue state New Yorkers (resisting urge to kick in appropriate reference to the crypto anti-semitism underlying Christie’s persona and positions).
I second Petey. And there’s no better whipping boy for the delight of right-wingers than New York!
Why would New York even need to screw New Jersey? They have Christie to do that.
If Paterson (and Bloomberg) didn’t care about ARC, why should Christie care about the Tappan Zee?
I wonder, is Christie’s relationship with Philadelphia better than with NYC?
Because the Tappan Zee helps New Jersey drivers, whereas ARC Alt P is completely useless to anyone who doesn’t live in Bergen and Passaic Counties.
Really? I see it as just the opposite. ARC Alt P helps all NJ rail commuters in terms of reducing bottlenecks across the river, while the Tappan Zee only helps the few residents of Bergen and Passaic Counties who live north of the George Washington.
I may not agree with his tone, but I agree with Gov. Christie’s stance that having New Jersey fund the Tappan Zee is ridiculous. It’s like having New Jersey fund the Verrazzano. Pitching it as an investment that will yield a windfall revenue in tolls is crazy.
Let me backtrack a bit… the rail connection across the Tap may eliminate congestion on the New Jersey Rails, if Metro-North gets kicked out of Hoboken.
ARC Alt P doesn’t help existing commuters. All current trains would still have to pass through the same two-track bottleneck of Portal Bridge, which would remain unfixed without a separate project. The new tunnels would only enable the Erie lines’ trains to serve Midtown.
So, Alt P only helps a market of north of a million people? IIRC, fewer people travel the Tappan Zee daily than would use ARC. But even the numbers are similar, what percentage of Tappan Zee users have Jersey plates?
I think Christie is silly not to hear out a revenue sharing agreement if a clever one is possible, but I gotta (hold my nose and) agree with him on this one overall.
Fewer people travel the Tappan Zee than would use all NJT trains, including ones that would have no gain in service under ARC Alt P. Only new rail riders would gain anything, and those are quite few.
Now, in some cases, it’s inappropriate to use a new rail rider metric – for example, for a relief line, like SAS, where riders diverted from one rail line to another would still benefit. But in the case of ARC Alt P, only new riders would be affected – existing ones would ride the same trains to approximately the same terminal.
Now that I’ve read about it, I can see how ARC Alt P primarily benefits Bergen and Passaic commuters with the direct connection. But the FEIS (Figure 2-1) claims that NJ Transit would increase its peak service from the current 20 TPH to 44 TPH, only 9 TPH coming from Main/Bergen and Pascack Valley service, the rest from the Morris and Essex and the NEC, including direct Raritan Valley service. Is there something I’m missing? Maybe NJ Transit is reneging on its additional service?
The other interesting thing I learned is that NJ Transit operations would be split between the current Penn Station and the 34th Street cavern station, not all transferred to 34th Street as I had assumed. That has got to confuse the hell out of commuters, who could end up walking back and forth between the (essentially) two stations. And if non-peak service does not require the use of both stations, that is a waste of a facility. I still don’t agree with the way Christie handled the cancellation, but, while it alone shouldn’t be the tipping point, I see this as one reason now.
That assumes the new Portal Bridge would be built, for another $2 billion.
Except that they are busy building a three track replacement and a two track replacement for Portal Bridge. The two track one may be put in mothballs since it was going to be primarily serving the ARC tunnels.
Upgrade the Tappan Zee and fix the bottleneck problems and you cut some of the traffic flow currently clogging the George Washington Bridge, from drivers using the GWB and the Pallisades Parkway to go to and from the city and Rockland County and other NYC suburbs in NYS west of the Hudson.
You’d think one of Christie’s transportation advisers (the same ones saying put more money into roads) would have looked into that mitigating circumstance at the very least before reflexively saying ‘no’ (and I would guess if the Port Authority did have control of the Tappan Zee, that would also give N.J. a say on the design of the bridge as well as a share of the toll revenue, so that any concerns the governor has that Albany wants to use the Port Authority’s reserves to build a solid gold bridge over the Hudson would be blocked).
To drive to New York City via the TZ from (let’s say) Parsippany, NJ, you have to take Garden St Pky all the way to the northern end, then get on the NY Thruway, which takes you (surprise!) right to the Major Deegan. You’ve just driven 30 miles out of your way as compared to I-80 and the GWB.
And is sometimes faster than the delays at the GWB. But I would think if you’re in Parsippany you’d just go up 287 since its 287 that crosses the TZB.
given that New Jersey is basically a glorified suburb to New York and Philadelphia, Christie policy strikes me as surprisingly short-sighted.
Which is why until NJ gets rid of Christie, anyone who is a resident of NJ should be banned from working in NY.
Ok. I’m being silly and I know it but I agree. NJ is as useless as middle america and just flyover country.
And also remember that Christie is giving us flyover folks more lanes through which to pass through quickly. Thank you Gov. Christie for looking out for the out-of-staters!
$16 billion dollars divided by the number of people using the bridge works out to about $100,000 per person. It makes even the worst transit boondoggles in the US look good.
Christie is being paranoid here, but if I were him, I’d tell Paterson to cut a zero from the budget before even thinking of hitting me up for money. (Or I’d tell him, “Sorry, we spent all of our money on ARC Alt G”…)
I’m with Alon. $16B for a bridge? I wouldn’t pay that for the Brooklyn Bridge.
This project is absolutely insane, and whatever you think of Christie’s rationale if he gets it scrapped good on him. I saw a figure that they thought something like $2 billion was the amount that could be raised in bonds – that’s insanely low for a project costing $16 billion, and screams boondoggle. We’re better off just subsidizing current Tappan Zee commuters to move to the side of the river where they work.
Anybody know how many minutes you save on the Port Jervis line when you run it over the Tappan Zee and down to Grand Central?
To be honest with you, I’m quite foggy on how on earth they planned to connect the Port Jervis and Pasack Valley lines to the Hudson Line over the new Tappan-Zee; There’s a lot of towns in the way right on the border with Jersey, and there’s no clear right of way as far as I can see. In any event I imagine all it would really save is about 10-20 minutes, depending if the train is running express to Grand Central.
Ignoring Governor Christie’s policies entirely, he speaks like a low-class dope.
No governor, nor the head of any state, should be telling another state publicly to stop ‘screwing’ them. He speaks like a bum.
Talks are quickly breaking down, and the future, for any kind kind of decent transportation between New York and New Jersey, isn’t looking too bright.
Agreed… and there is talk that he’s trying to prepare for a bid to be President. Absurd.
And yet an equally stupid sounding woman is making huge headways… Middle America is quite stupid and proving it each and every day.
True. Middle Americans are so stupid, they elected a leader who yelled at ferret owners that they’re crazy.
Very funny. At least we never had the opportunity to vote him into the Senate, and then he was so inept he couldn’t figure out how to run a primary campaign. Thankfully, his political career is probably dead.
Ah, the psychosis of an inferiority complex. My oh my, how defensive and irrational. If he didn’t want to do it, just say, “No, thanks. It makes little sense to NJ.”
Precisely. He’s one loose cannon.
I’m going to call it now. The Tappan Zee replacement will follow the same fate as the ARC tunnel. Both have huge price tags, are sorely needed, and would take years to build. They’ll probably start building the Tappan Zee and then some future governor will stop it and raid the money. One day down the line the Tappan Zee and the ARC tunnel will fall into such disrepair as to be unusable and we will really be screwed.
Frankly, Christie is right. NY has done little to close a structural budget gap and it should not be hitting up NJ for money. Remember, this comes on top of the fact that the 7 is now being proposed to go to Secaucus JUST to get the ARC money. Cities and states are driving themselves off the cliff because federal money is being dangled over the edge. That is irresponsible.
I just looked at the cost of the much more complex Oresund Bridge-Tunnel, featuring 2.5 miles of tunnel and 5 miles of bridge. It was $5 billion.
More important than the absolute cost is the fact that it was 100% financed from user fees. It’s easy to get projects done when don’t need to explain why people who never use the thing ought to pay for it. If the present value of the Tappan Zee’s future tolls was $16 billion, this cost would be a non-issue. But if it’s only worth $2 billion to its future users, it’s a tough haul to justify $14 billion in value to NON users.
As a New Yorker, I have to agree with Cristy. The TZ connects one part of NY State to another, and New jersey has nothing to do with it. It’s our problem.
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