The Secaucus Boondoggle

First New Jersey Transit spent nearly half a billion dollars [though probably much more - estimates suggest it cost $600 million] on a transfer station (the Junction) that would link 11 of the 12 transit lines in the state (the twelfth is the Atlantic City line that runs from Philly to Atlantic City). That project was originally supposed to cost a fraction of that amount, but cost overruns, delays, the discovery of a previously unrecorded Potter's Field, multiple contracts, and wastage foisted this project onto taxpayers and ridership. The debt servicing from this project will warp the budget of New Jersey transit for the foreseeable future. People quickly forget the costs associated with building this facility, especially the politicians who love ribbon cuttings or want to have buildings named after them.

At the same time that the Junction was being built, it was proposed that Allied Junction would build an office/hotel complex over the transfer and adjacent land, which would eventually pay for the entire site [wishful thinking]. The site was prepared with this in mind but the municipality did not want parking garages for a park and ride even though they were proposed under the original planning.

Then came the whole notion of building a new interchange for the New Jersey Turnpike that is adjacent to the transfer station. Ostensibly, this interchange was supposed to alleviate traffic to the Lincoln Tunnel, but in reality it may only help get some trucks from nearby intermodal transfer sites onto the Turnpike.

That interchange is about to go live later this week after more than $200 million was expended:

The new interchange, numbered 15X, is due to open Thursday, but authorities are concerned the $250 million project won't attract enough drivers to make it profitable. So they are considering permitting developers to put 1,100 parking spaces at the new exit, near the Secaucus Junction transfer station.

That would allow commuters to hop trains into Manhattan. But the company proposing the lot, Edison Properties, wants to build it as part of a much larger project that includes a hotel and conference center, shopping, and two office and residential high-rise towers.

"The whole reason for the Secaucus Transfer was to get people out of their cars and onto the trains,'' Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Monday's newspapers. "Now if they put parking there it's going to make the traffic on the Turnpike even worse.''

Edison Properties would provide a temporary 1,100-space commuter parking lot at the site, the company's consultant, Mark Gordon, told the newspaper. The company would later replace it with a parking garage that would include about 1,100 spots for commuters and an additional 1,000 to 1,500 spaces for the larger commercial project.

When Interchange 15X was approved five years ago, it was designed to include substantial development over the train station; the state spent $30 million to ensure that the station's foundations were strong enough to support the proposed towers.

Given that the Internet lets you research the subject more thoroughly, the 1010wins article glosses over the cost overruns, the lack of support within the Turnpike Authority itself for the project, which considered it a colossal boondoggle.

So, now we're at an 'end' of the construction at the Junction. It remains to be seen whether the interchange will be fully utilized. It remains to be seen whether the office complex, parking garages, and transfer facilities will ever be fully utilized, especially considering that a long term plan is to create a one seat ride into Manhattan from the Main/Bergen and Pascack Valley lines instead of requiring a transfer at the Junction.

I'm a big booster of transit projects that help improve traffic flow, increase efficiencies, and while the Junction is a project I should support in theory, the reality is that the state officials who oversaw the project wasted taxpayer funds and will continue to deprive customers of New Jersey Transit for the foreseeable future because of inflated debt payments.