(The following story by Tom Davis appeared on The Bergen Record website on August 11, 2010.)
BERGEN, N.J. — Just as the federal government is close to officially committing $3 billion for a mass transit tunnel linking Manhattan and New Jersey, the merits of the project continue to be debated.
Environmental and transportation groups have released competing reports in recent weeks showing that the tunnel would either raise property values and be a boon to business, or create more problems for mass transit users who want easy access to rail.
Q. How will the project be funded?
The $8.7 billion project has received funding commitments of $3 billion from the Port Authority, $1.5 billion from the state and $1.25 billion from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.
NJ Transit and the Port Authority are negotiating with the Federal Transit Administration to sign the funding plan’s “closing documents” within weeks, said Paul Wyckoff, a NJ Transit spokesman.
Q. What do the advocates say?
A study recently released by Regional Plan Association shows how the tunnel would significantly increase New Jersey and New York home values near train lines that would connect to the project. The study says home values within 2 miles of train stations would rise $19,000 on average; while homes within walking distance would rise $29,000.
The tunnel would shorten commuting times, enticing people to move west of the Hudson River and within a reasonable, 50-minute commute of midtown Manhattan, the report said. The expected population increase would expand the workforce for New York City’s highest-value businesses.
Q. What do the critics say?
The tunnel’s depth, however, may deter people from using it and could be a risk in the event of an emergency, a Sierra Club of New Jersey report said. As proposed, passengers would have to travel the equivalent of 20 stories via a series of escalators, said Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey.
The tunnel project initially was supposed to serve several purposes: creating another tunnel into New York, providing New Jersey commuters access to Grand Central Terminal and the East Side of Manhattan and creating a backup tunnel for Amtrak, Tittel said.
“Unfortunately, this tunnel now only meets the first of those goals,” Tittel said. “Instead of connecting to Penn Station or the new Moynihan Station, the tunnel dead-ends 180 feet below the ground, two blocks from Penn Station. The project is now the tunnel to Macy’s basement.”
Q. What is expected for the future?
The tunnel will boost local economies and home values since much smaller projects — such as the renovation of the Ridgewood train station — did the same, said Juliette Michaelson, senior planner of the Regional Plan Association.
“The project will be a terrific economic boon to the region, providing better access to high-paying Manhattan jobs to New Jersey residents and improving New York businesses’ access to the New Jersey labor pool,” Michaelson said.
The Sierra Club of New Jersey wants the region’s leaders to come together and address the “many inadequacies” of the tunnel project. The Sierra Club thinks that a cohesive transportation plan must be coordinated to make the tunnel an effective project.
Construction of the tunnel has begun and is scheduled to be completed by 2018.
Q. What does NJ Transit say?
Wyckoff said the project is designed to meet the appropriate construction codes, and the tunnel is designed to have the same depth as an East Side Manhattan station planned for the Long Island Railroad.
The project cannot be built any higher because to do so could impact the surface of Manhattan’s densely populated neighborhoods, Wyckoff said.
Q. What are the sources of the reports?
The RPA report, titled, “The ARC Effect: How Better Transit Boosts Home Values and Local Economies,” is based on a statistical analysis of 45,000 home sales within 2 miles of train stations near recent NJ Transit improvement projects.
The report examined the values of homes near the Midtown Direct Service on the Morris and Essex Line, the Montclair Connection for the Montclair-Boonton Line and Secaucus Junction, which serves the Pascack Valley, Main/Bergen and Port Jervis lines.
The Sierra Club’s report, called “Riders of the Lost ARC and Other Wasteful Projects,” came in the form of a position paper that is based on media reports and research conducted by the organization’s Transportation Committee, Tittel said.