IN THE NEXT few days, Governor Christie will step before a podium to announce the fate of the Hudson commuter rail tunnel, a stunningly pivotal moment for New Jersey’s economic well-being and a decision that may help him ride an unlikely controversy to wider national renown as a two-fisted fiscal conservative.
Christie first killed the $8.7 billion tunnel project on Oct. 7, saying he couldn’t stick voters with cost overruns he pegged as high as $5 billion. Then the nation’s top transportation official, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, hand-delivered ideas to him in Trenton for salvaging the tunnel. Christie ordered the project to continue winding down but gave a working group two weeks to review the Obama administration official’s ideas.
Two options
Politically, Christie can win two ways. Either he kills the tunnel entirely, or he forces economies and secures a promise that additional non-state funds will be found and construction resumes. The former order will be cheered by thrift-focused Republicans and the anti-spending Tea Party movement that has embraced Christie, the latter by New Jersey taxpayers.
Yet if he rejects LaHood’s blandishments, the state would be a monumental loser because it would be denied the biggest strategic investment in its economy since the Depression. The state would forego 6,000 local jobs that are important in today’s weak economy, and 44,000 permanent jobs in 20 years.
But the influence of the tunnel, formally known as the Access to the Region’s Core project, on New Jersey’s future cannot be overstated. With it, wealth from the financial capital of the world would radiate to cities and towns west of the Hudson River for generations to come, whereas without it, Christie condemns the state to perpetual status as the tri-state region’s poor country cousin.
Nation’s largest project
ARC is the largest public works project in the country, having been allocated some $200 million in funds under President Obama’s stimulus plan. As it was evolving for a decade, it enjoyed wide bipartisan support — Christie himself advocated it to Washington during his first months as governor.
But killing the tunnel earned national headlines and it ceased being a parochial New Jersey matter. During this heated congressional election season, the tunnel quickly came to epitomize the paramount national debate over how to cure the country’s stubborn economic ills — whether to prime the economy with public works spending or to cut spending at all government levels to the bone.
“Thanks to Christie’s stunning decision, the tunnel has become a symbol of what Republicans, especially Tea Party supporters, think of the stimulus and government spending,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Christie has defined the tunnel as bloated pork, though many beg to differ.”
Rather than pork, the tunnel is an energy-efficient platform for mobility in the 21st century.
It would double commuter rail capacity during rush hours between New Jersey and Manhattan, from 23 trains per hour to 48 trains, with its tracks going to a new station beneath 34th Street because Pennsylvania Station will be at capacity. So far $8.7 billion had been pledged — $3 billion from ARC co-sponsor the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, $3 billion from the federal government and $2.7 billion in state funds.
Unless Christie changes his mind, however, the state loses the $3 billion in federal funds. The Port Authority would be free to recommit its $3 billion to road, rail and port facilities within the authority district, a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty.
And if the tunnel dies, northern New Jersey and southern New York State have the most to lose. Over time, NJ Transit has been investing in links that gave Essex, Union, Morris and other counties direct service to midtown Manhattan, while telling people in 250 Bergen, Passaic, Rockland and Orange towns they must wait for the tunnel before they get fast, no-transfer rides to the city. Railroad officials would now have to tell them to forget it.
The next revolution
The tunnel is also a linchpin to the next revolution in passenger rail — the meshing of the New York region’s three commuter lines whereby trains run on one another’s tracks. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and NJ Transit planners foresee riders, for example, going from Ridgewood to Citi Field, from Westwood to the Hamptons, or from New Brunswick to New Haven, on one train and with one ticket. Without the tunnel, New Jersey does not participate in rail regionalization.
The possibility of ARC cost overruns were first raised in May by the FTA, about the time the federal agency was in final negotiations with the MTA on the price to complete the Second Avenue Subway and the Long Island Rail Road’s tunnel to Grand Central Terminal. The parties agreed these big N.Y. projects each risked costing $500 million more.
The MTA committed to all overages and construction never ceased.
NJ Transit has for five months been negotiating cost contingencies with the FTA that the state would be required to cover. On the day Christie killed ARC, NJ Transit issued a statement saying it had put forth a range of $8.7 billion go $10 billion and the FTA $10.9 billion to $13.7 billion. ARC planners said NJ Transit and the FTA should be permitted to negotiate a final price and work should proceed.
Completion in stages
LaHood’s ideas are being closely held. But planners say to save money, the project could be completed in stages and the tunnel completed by late 2018 as scheduled. A new rail yard in Kearney is just one feature that can be delayed to save hundreds of millions of dollars in initial costs.
Planners say Amtrak could become a project sponsor and a source of additional federal funds. If the new tunnel is built, Amtrak gets two more rush-hour slots through the existing 100-year old tunnel to Penn Station under agreement with NJ Transit.
“The tunnel is essential for Amtrak to add future service,” said Jeff Zupan of the Regional Plan Association. But, he said, Amtrak “doesn’t have any money.”
LaHood and FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff are said to have been surprised by the $11 billion to $14 billion estimate Christie used to kill ARC. He jacked up its cost by adding $775 million — the cost of a new bridge that carries the Northeast Corridor over the Hackensack River — to the $8.7 billion. But the bridge, which both Amtrak and NJ Transit use, is not a formal piece of the project.
Bringing Amtrak into the fold
The new bridge is needed to carry more trains to the tunnel to use its full capacity. Sources said LaHood could bring Amtrak into the fold and direct high-speed passenger rail funds to the bridge to benefit the national railroad but also help cover Christie’s higher ARC cost.
As to the governor’s future, he has been stumping around the country for Republicans who admire his credit-crunching reputation. Three days after he killed the tunnel, he won a Tea Party presidential straw poll in Virginia, beating Sarah Palin.
“The fact that he beat Sarah Palin, the patron saint of the Tea Party movement, is significant,” Sabato said.
Whatever he chooses to do with ARC, Christie will please many people and will be seen as a sharp political operator.
But reputations are fleeting, whereas should he build the tunnel, it will serve New Jersey for a long, long time.
source: Northjersey
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