(The following article by Sewell Chan and Jim Rutenberg was posted on the New York Times website on March 4.)
NEW YORK — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg suddenly announced his opposition last night to a proposed freight rail tunnel under the New York Harbor, a sharp reversal of his administration’s earlier support for the project.
The mayor spoke out against the project at a community meeting in Middle Village, Queens.
“I think when you get done looking at all the pros and cons,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “the answer is we should not build this tunnel.”
The freight tunnel’s terminal would be built in a nearby neighborhood, Maspeth, and residents have mobilized against the project, saying the area would be overwhelmed by noisy trucks and diesel exhaust.
Mr. Bloomberg told the meeting in Middle Village, “You really would destroy neighborhoods here in this area, and we just can’t do this at this point.”
The tunnel, with an estimated cost of as much as $7 billion, has become politically charged. The mayor’s leading Democratic opponent, Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, is a longtime supporter of the tunnel. Three other Democrats who are running for mayor also announced their support recently: C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president; Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker, and Representative Anthony D. Weiner of Brooklyn and Queens.
Planning for the tunnel began under Mr. Bloomberg’s predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and has advanced in the last three years. Last April, the city’s Economic Development Corporation, in a study known as a draft environmental impact statement, endorsed the project. It concluded that the tunnel should be built between Jersey City and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Financing for the multibillion project has yet to be determined. In a sense, the project does not depend on the mayor’s support, since most of the funding is to come from the federal government. Aides to the mayor consider the support of middle-class voters in Queens and Brooklyn important to his bid for re-election.
The project’s major champion, Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, said he was unfazed by the mayor’s remarks.
“In light of the city’s own findings that the cross-harbor tunnel would bring crucial economic, health, environmental and national security benefits to New York, it’s disappointing that the mayor feels compelled to back down from his full-on support of the project,” Mr. Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, said in a telephone interview. “His public stance, however, is not a central force in the advancement of the project.”
He said he expected the Economic Development Corporation, which is working on the final environmental impact statement, to “actively look for ways of mitigating the impact on Maspeth, as it should.”
Mr. Nadler said the government had already invested $22 million in the studies. He said he expected money for engineering and design work to be included when Congress reauthorizes the major federal transportation bill, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. Additional federal money would be needed for construction, which he said could start by 2009.