(The following story by Tom Feeney appeared on the Star-Ledger website on March 25.)
NEWARK, N.J. — A new commuter rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River would be good. Extending it from the West Side of Manhattan to the East Side would make it better.
That’s the central argument offered by the nonprofit Regional Plan Association in a report made public yesterday.
New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plan to build an $8 billion commuter rail tunnel to provide much-needed capacity for get ting trains back and forth between New Jersey and a new station beneath 34th Street, close to the existing Penn Station, on the West Side of Manhattan. The project, known as Access to the Region’s Core, or ARC, is scheduled to be completed in 2017.
The RPA supports the project, but its report encourages the agencies to consider adding a second phase to connect the 34th Street Station to a new station beneath Madison Avenue at 45th Street, near Grand Central Terminal, on the East Side. The extension would provide New Jersey commuters with a one-seat ride to the part of Manhattan where a majority of jobs are located.
“Access to the Region’s Core will have tremendous benefits for New York, New Jersey and the entire Mega-region,” reads the report by RPA, an independent, not-for- profit regional planning organization that has been working to improve the quality of life and the economic competitiveness of the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region for more than 80 years. “These benefits can be expanded by considering a second phase of the project connecting to Manhattan’s East Side,” the report adds.
Gov. Jon Corzine has called the ARC project New Jersey’s top transportation priority. The Port Authority has pledged $3 billion toward its completion, and New Jersey has pledged $1.5 billion. The agencies hope the Federal Transit Administration will pay for much of the balance.
“The RPA has taken a leading role in building tremendous bistate support for ARC, and we appreci ate the group’s continued efforts to advocate for future expansions,” said the Port Authority’s chief of public affairs, Steve Sigmund. “Now it’s time for the FTA to join the Port Authority and New Jersey to fund this project that’s so critical to the region’s, and the nation’s, future.”
The new rail tunnel would represent the first expansion of capacity across the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York since a second deck was added to the George Washington Bridge 46 years ago. It would enable NJ Transit to double the number of trains it runs to and from Manhattan dur ing morning and evening peak periods. And it would mean a one-seat ride into Manhattan for many New Jersey commuters who now must switch trains in Secaucus or Newark.
The RPA advocated a link to the East Side of Manhattan in a 2003 report on the ARC project. The new report uses data not available then to evaluate the link, and it reflects a change in thinking on the part of RPA.
The 2003 report suggested the link be made in the form of a rail loop that would have delivered NJ Transit passengers to four Midtown locations. The RPA now ad vocates a direct extension from the West Side to the new terminal beneath Madison Avenue. Jeffrey M. Zuppan, the report’s principal author and a senior transportation fellow for RPA, said the extension would provide nearly the same level of benefit while costing much less than the loop.
Zuppan said he believes the ARC project should go ahead as scheduled.
“This is an important project,” he said. “We’re not suggesting it be held up. We’re suggesting this extension be done as a second phase after the first phase is done.”
NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said the design of the ARC project would enable a future generation to build an East Side extension.