(The following story by Joshua Robin appeared at Newsday.com on December 8.)
NEW YORK — A new Hudson River rail tunnel and an expansion of Penn Station are the best ways to relieve increasing commuter congestion, transit officials plan to report Tuesday.
The proposals come as New York officials plan the long-term redevelopment of the area west of Penn Station and as NJ Transit reports that by 2009, it will no longer be able to accomodate any more riders.
“Not only are Penn Station … and the trains serving it overcrowded, but all trans-Hudson crossings are at or near capacity,” according to a report on the rail proposals.
About 340,000 riders arrive and depart from Penn Station daily on Amtrak, Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit. That number is expected to grow to about 432,000 by 2010.
NJ Transit customers alone are expected to more than double in the next 10 to 12 years, said Richard Roberts, chief planner of the joint Port Authority-NJ Transit project.
The agencies held hearings Monday on the plan in New Jersey; additional hearings will be at the Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue Wednesday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn’t taken a position on the tunnel and the expansion.
“We are aware of the project, and we are evaluating the scoping documents,” said mayoral spokeswoman Jennifer Falk.
The ideas have the support of the Regional Plan Association, which sees the project as bringing new jobs to the Far West Side.
“It’s going to help ensure that the markets are growing in the region,” said association spokesman Jeremy Soffin.
Plans call for the tunnel to be constructed under the Hudson, south of the existing tube. Additional tracks would be built below 34th Street, between Sixth and Eighth avenues, said Martin Robins, who formerly headed the initiative and now is director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University.
The project is expected to cost up to $5 billion and would probably not be built for more than 10 years.
Citing prohibitive costs, officials said they have temporarily put aside another initiative, to extend the tunnel through Manhattan to the Sunnyside Yards in Queens. That East River tube would free up space in an adjacent Amtrak-owned tunnel that NJ Transit now uses to bring trains for storage.
They also have apparently dropped proposals to bring NJ Transit to Grand Central Terminal.
Instead, they are concentrating on the West Side, which Bloomberg wants to develop in sync with building a new stadium for the 2012 Olympics.