(The following story by Errol A. Cockfield and Joshua Robin appeared on the Newsday website on May 4.)
NEW YORK — Gov. George Pataki in a speech tomorrow is expected to throw his support behind a $7 billion plan to build a new tunnel under the East River to bring Long Island Rail Road trains into lower Manhattan.
Pataki intends to make the announcement during remarks before a luncheon sponsored by the Association for a Better New York, a business and civic organization, at The Ritz-Carlton New York, sources familiar with the project said yesterday.
Pataki also is expected to offer an alternative $5.8-billion plan that calls for LIRR trains to run through the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Montague Street tunnel, which now serves the M and R subway lines, sources said. Pataki is looking at a combination of federal and state funding, sources said.
But MTA officials favor building the new tunnel because such a project would prove less disruptive for existing service, the sources said.
If a new tunnel is created, it would be the authority’s first underwater tunnel built since the 63rd Street tunnel was completed in 1989. That tunnel, which now carries subways, is slated to be a conduit for the East Side Access project, which will bring LIRR trains to Grand Central Terminal. .
People in “downtown Manhattan have complained about having a lack of commuter rail access since Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913,” said one person briefed on Pataki’s plan.
MTA spokesman, John McCarthy, declined to comment. Long Island Rail Road officials referred questions to the MTA.
A Pataki spokeswoman, Lynn Rasic, said, “No final decision has been made” about the governor’s selected route.
Pataki’s decision whittles down the options for linking the Island with lower Manhattan from four proposals to two. Originally, the governor proposed building a new tunnel, using the Montague Street tunnel, using the Cranberry Street tunnel now serving the A and C subway lines, or another option in which both the Montague and Cranberry street tunnels would be used.
The goal of the proposals is to provide a one-seat ride to lower Manhattan from Kennedy Airport as well as from the Jamaica Long Island Rail Road terminal.
Lower Manhattan business leaders have aggressively pushed for the rail link, arguing it is crucial for them to tap into the Long Island labor market through a proposed connection at Jamaica station.
“This project must be treated as priority one,” Bank of New York chairman and chief executive Thomas Renyi told the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association in March.
But the proposal has drawn fire from critics who argue it could draw funding away from other important transportation initiatives, such as the Second Avenue Subway line and the East Side Access plan.
During his speech, Pataki also is expected to address the status of efforts to fund the building of a memorial at the World Trade Center site.
There will be a two-pronged effort to raise money for the memorial and other related activities. While a foundation will raise money to build the site, September’s Mission, a victims family group, has been leading the 9/11 Campaign, to raise money for cultural programming.