NEWARK, N.J. — Amtrak and New Jersey’s two U.S. senators think they have a way to add a rail link to New York City that will spread the cost around and prove more popular, among commuters and politicians alike, than the project Gov. Chris Christie killed last year.
Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez and railroad officials on Monday proposed two tunnels under the Hudson River as a $13.5 billion alternative to the “Access to the Region’s Core” plan, which Christie refused to approve because his state would have been on the hook for cost overruns.
Amtrak had been looking to build a second tunnel to increase capacity beyond one built in 1911 and to allow for a higher-speed line along the Northeast Corridor — but not for decades. When Christie killed the ARC tunnel in October, it began looking to speed up those plans.
The main rail link between New York and New Jersey carries 62 trains a day; the new proposal would raise the number of daily trains to 92. Underscoring congestion problems, an Amtrak derailment Monday afternoon near a tunnel under the East River, on the other side of Manhattan, stymied the evening rush hour.
The full Associated Press story appears on the Wall Street Journal website.