(The following story by Tom Feeney appeared on the Star-Ledger website on May 15.)
NEWARK — The Corzine administration got approval yesterday for its plan to use federal highway aid to help pay for a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River.
The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority voted unanimously to let the administration use $1 billion earmarked for highway congestion relief on the tunnel project and to repay the highway program over the next 10 years with money from the state transportation trust fund.
The shift means the state and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey now have pledged nearly half of the $7.5 billion estimated cost of the tunnel.
“If that’s not an absolute commitment by this region to go forward on this project, I don’t know what would be,” state Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri said at the planning authority meeting in Newark.
The state and the Port Authority are counting on federal funding to pay the balance of the cost. By putting up nearly half of the money themselves, they hope to make a strong case to convince the federal government to fund the rest.
“We are competing for funding with projects across the country, and we need to show local commitment,” said NJ Transit executive director Richard Sarles. “The more local funding, the higher the project is rated, and the higher the rating, the more likely it is to get federal money.”
New Jersey officials consider the tunnel and other parts of the program known as Access to the Region’s Core crucial to the long-term economic interests of the state.
The existing tunnel connecting the state to Midtown Manhattan is a century old and nearly at capacity.
The new tunnel would double the number of trains able to travel between New Jersey and Midtown during peak periods.
Its construction would allow NJ Transit to offer one-seat rail service to New York on the Raritan Valley, Main, Bergen County and Pascack Valley lines, the Montclair-Boonton Line west of Montclair, the Jersey Coast Line south to Bay Head and the Morristown Line west of Dover. Passengers on those lines now have to switch trains to travel into the city.
The authority is the regional transportation planning organization for 13 northern New Jersey counties. Its board of trustees determines how federal transportation aid is spent in those counties.
Peter Palmer, a Somerset County freeholder and member of the authority board, said every one of the counties in the northern region of the state has some transportation plan in the works that will depend on the construction of the second tunnel.
“Unquestionably, this step is the way to go,” Palmer said before the authority vote.
Two other freeholders who voted in favor of shifting the funds said the board will need to pay careful attention in coming years to make sure the governor and Legislature repay the highway congestion relief funds as promised with money from the trust fund, which will be insolvent by 2011 without an influx of cash.
“We’ve got to keep an eye on this,” said David Crabiel, a Middlesex County freeholder and member of the authority board. “It’s not just the vote today. This may require action by us in the future.”