ARC Fallout: Schumer v. Christie

New York needs the ARC Tunnel too.

Charles Schumer, my neighbor and the senior senator from the great state of New York, took to the stage this morning at Crain’s breakfast forum. His topic concerned the city’s aging public transportation infrastructure and the need to expand the system within the city’s five boroughs and improve interconnectedness outside of it. I’ll tackle what he did and didn’t say about the MTA later, but for now, let’s look at Schumer’s choice words for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

As the Senator touted New York’s investment in rail, he spoke at length about the East Side Access project, the Second Ave. Subway and the 7 line extension. These three efforts are the MTA’s key capital projects and are all supported by federal dollars to one extent or another. New Jersey though has earned Schumer’s ire.

To open his talk on Christie, Schumer did not mince words. “Though I am extremely sympathetic to the fiscal problems Governor Christie clearly faces and I recognize there are not easy choices to make,” he said, “I believe pulling the plug on ARC was a terrible, terrible decision.”

Schumer touting the ARC Tunnel job creation numbers and the “starkly evident” traffic mitigation impact the tunnel would have had. He spoke of the RPA study that showed how ARC would raise property values throughout New Jersey and how we must improve connections westward as well as eastward.

Yet, his strongest words were reserved for Christie’s current political machinations. The New Jersey governor is making a play to grab the ARC money to help cover his state’s budget gap, and Schumer fears for the future. I’ll quote at length:

Governor Christie, faced with very real and very difficult budget decisions, has turned to the Port Authority, and the money that was originally dedicated to the ARC project. While I would certainly support using the funding the Port Authority had committed to ARC to extend the 7 train to New Jersey, I do not think it is appropriate to use Port Authority funds for what are essentially maintenance projects.

Governor Christie’s proposed idea that $1.8 billion of what was originally committed by the Port Authority for the ARC for other projects is to compound one mistake with another, perhaps even a greater one. These are smaller projects aimed at maintaining existing roadways that would otherwise be funded with New Jersey transportation dollars. In essence, the Governor wants the Port Authority to help fill his budget gap…Asking the Port Authority to take capital funds and redirect them on this scale, a scale never before contemplated, would be a mistake that rivals, and perhaps even surpasses the cancellation of the ARC tunnel as a risk to our region’s future.

It could well begin the cannibalization of Port Authority dollars and could mark the beginning of the end of the long-term ability of our region to respond to its major transportation needs. The Port Authority as an agency has always been committed to the long-term, the future, to building out the infrastructure of the region so that we can accommodate future growth. While it is a creature of politics, and certainly not immune to them, it has also managed to retain over its history an independence that has served the entire region. Because it has dedicated revenue stream, the Port Authority has been able to plan and complete projects, regardless of the momentary crises that the states themselves have sometimes faced. We cannot allow the agency to be cannibalized in order to solve short term budget problems, however acute. Following New Jersey’s lead, New York could well request the Port Authority to provide dollars for similar repairs, like fixing the Belt Parkway. And were this to become the norm, then where would be? If we allow the Port Authority to be turned into a rainy day fund, used year to year to fill gaps, or if we allow it to become a bank of last resort to make up for shortfalls, it’s the end of the agency as we know it, and of its ability to fulfill its function, which is to support the future economic growth of the region.

Christie, through a spokesman, fired back later this afternoon. “Where was the senior senator from New York with funding alternatives to a project that was predicted to run billions over projections – all of which were to be borne by New Jersey and its taxpayers?” Michael Drewniak said. “This was a ‘bi-state’ project for which Senator Schumer’s state and the federal government were set to pay zero, zilch, nothing for the cost overruns. We can live with the criticism while protecting taxpayers from this boondoggle, which was simply a bad deal for New Jersey.”

Of course, Christie never tried to work out a funding agreement on cost overruns with New York, the feds or anyone. He simply pulled the plug and tried to keep the federal dollars. He’s shown no willingness to respond to Mayor Bloomberg’s pie-in-the-sky proposal to extend the 7 line to Seacaucus and now wants to use dedicated ARC dollars to cover the Transportation Trust Fund’s sinking budget.

Ultimately, New York and New Jersey will have to work together to address these cross-Hudson concerns. New York, through the Port Authority, was footing some of the ARC costs, but the state will likely need to come up with more to make a project work. Yet, Christie should not be playing fast and loose with the Port Authority money. As Schumer said, “There are too many important current projects on the Port Authority’s plate…for us to allow it to be diverted from its core mission. Nothing less than the future of the agency and the future of our region are at stake.”