(The following story by Larry Higgs appeared on the Asbury Park Press website on September 11.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Rail advocates criticized a proposed toll increase plan that would provide $1.25 billion for the proposed second Hudson River rail tunnel to New York, saying the cost will be charged only to toll road users and suggested NJ Transit cut the price of the project by returning to the original plan.
Rail advocates made the suggestions and criticisms Wednesday at NJ Transit’s board of directors meeting, where a five-minute video was unveiled that would give riders a first look at the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) tunnel and 34th Street station in Manhattan. The video can be seen on NJTransit’s Web site and atwww.arctunnel.com.
Advocates from the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, National Association of Railroad Passengers, the Regional Rail Working Group and the Lackawanna Coalition expressed their concerns that costs for the tunnel, the 34th Street station and an allied project to replace the aging Portal Bridge through the Jersey Meadows will exceed estimates and require a larger $3.3 billion contribution from the state.
NJ Transit officials are understating and ignoring what advocates contend is the true $9.3 billion cost of both projects, and are using a flawed toll increase to finance it, said Al Papp, vice president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers and a director of the state association.
“This is another version of the old and tired gubernatorial plan rejected by voters and legislators alike, this time to double tolls on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike over 14 years,” Papp said. “This discriminatory and predatory pricing plan is like trying to place a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage.”
Papp suggested that instead of placing the full brunt of funding the tunnel only on toll road users, NJ Transit’s board and state Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri should consider reducing the cost of the tunnel project by eliminating plans to build a station deep under 34th Street and return to the original plan to send trains to Penn Station in New York.
“We’re talking $2 billion less in spending if ARC goes to the existing Penn Station,” said Joseph Clift, a member of the Regional Rail Working Group and retired Long Island Railroad planning director. “That $3.3 billion can be reduced by three-quarters.”
Clift asked how the state would finance the project if the cost goes up, because funds and borrowing capacity generated by the toll increase would be spoken for.
NJ Transit Executive Director Richard R. Sarles defended the project and financing through the toll plan as being critical to accommodating record levels of increasing ridership.
“It points out the need and the pressure for ARC,” Sarles said. “I didn’t hear anything new (from the advocates).”
The Portal Bridge is an independent project that is being done jointly between NJ Transit and Amtrak, he said.
“Amtrak and NJ Transit have seen the need to replace it,” Sarles said, and the agency is advancing both the tunnel and Portal Bridge projects.
NJ Transit officials said in earlier interviews that environmental and infrastructure constraints prevent having the trains go to Penn Station.
Clift said he is concerned that the tunnel and Portal Bridge projects will run out of money, similar to what happened to New York’s Second Avenue subway in the 1970s.
“We’d like an open, objective dialogue with the state,” he said.