Sandy Related Repairs to Affect LIRR and Amtrak Service for Years

New Yorkers have been trying to adjust to the new normal of MTA repairs to tunnels that were flooded by the storm surge from Superstorm Sandy. It included a 15-month closure of the Montague tunnel that affected many living in Brooklyn. There have been scattered closures to other tunnels and rerouted service elsewhere in the subway system, but now comes word that Amtrak is about to do its own remediation of the East River tunnels.

These tunnels service not only Amtrak, but LIRR and NJ Transit. They connect Penn Station with Long Island through the Sunnyside Yards and Harold Interlocking. Amtrak has to take two of the tunnels out of service for a year each. This will reduce the service capacity by 25% (1 out of four tunnels will be out of service at any time during the duration of the project that is expected to start next year).

The reconstruction will be similar to the work done on the Montague tunnels. It will include rebuilding the bench walls that include cable conduits for signals and power, plus railbed replacement and other work that can't be done while the tunnel is active.

The MTA and Amtrak were able to get service restored, but have been seeing an increased amount of service disruptions due to corrosion of equipment in the affected tunnels. That's why this full rehabilitation must get done.

But the East River tunnels are the easy part.

Amtrak has said that they must do the same with the Hudson River tunnels.

There are only two tunnels under the Hudson, and each are over 100 years old. They are functionally obsolete and need major rehabilitation, but that work can't be done until additional capacity is added.

After Gov. Christie cancelled the fully funded ARC tunnel project, that left a gaping hole in capacity expansion. Amtrak proposed a better project, Gateway, that would directly link in with NY Penn Station and allow through trains to run and high speed rail once service improvements elsewhere in the system are made.

Gateway is more than a decade away from seeing the light of day due to lack of funding. So New Jersey residents will be suffering with service delays for the foreseeable future.

Now some will point to Christie being short sighted in his cancellation of the project, but it was the right thing to do because NJ Transit has never met a capital project it couldn't complete overbudget and years after the scheduled deadlines. Cost overruns were likely to be in the $1-2 billion range, and even the FTA warned about the cost containment.

Gateway allows more capacity to the entire system - NJ Transit, Amtrak, and LIRR. ARC would have had limited capacity improvements for NJ Transit since the New York terminus was just that - a terminus. There was no place to store additional trains for rush hour, reducing actual customer capacity on the trains that would run to New Jersey.

The fact that we need to get additional capacity to allow for both growth in customer demand and to fix existing infrastructure is well established. What's missing is the lack of support in New York and New Jersey to find the funding for this critical work. That falls on both Gov. Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Both have shown indifference to mass transit and infrastructure beyond a few car-centric projects like the new Tappan Zee bridge in New York and the Pulaski Skyway rehabilitation and NJ Turnpike expansion projects in New Jersey.

This has to change in order to improve the economic competitiveness of the region against other world-class cities.

Gateway Project Gets A Boost

The Gateway Tunnel project, which is being sought by Amtrak as a way to vastly improve high speed rail along the Northeast Corridor by doubling capacity into New York Penn Station under the Hudson River as well as provide New Jersey Transit with increased capacity, got a boost when Amtrak and the federal government signed off on a deal to fund the first phase of the project.

The first 800 foot segment through the West Side of Manhattan secures space for the tunnels where they enter Manhattan under the Hudson Yards that are being developed by the Related Companies will get underway this summer.

In a breakthrough promoted by Sen. Chuck Schumer, work is to start this summer on a Washington-funded, 800-foot-long “box tunnel” right under Related’s Hudson Yards site, where construction has begun on a 900-foot office tower that will be home to Coach, Inc.

Schumer hailed the agreement as “a red-letter day for the future of New York-New Jersey mass transit.” He told The Post, “It means the federal government is finally committed for the first time since ARC was killed to building a new tunnel.”

ARC was the four-track project that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie axed in 2010 over a cost estimated as high as $15 billion, which would have been largely paid for by the Port Authority.

No firm estimate for Amtrak’s proposed two-track Gateway project was immediately available, but the railroad expects the cost to be mostly borne by the feds.

The box tunnel will not be designed to carry trains immediately, but will serve as a shell for the Manhattan end of the Gateway tunnel Amtrak hopes to build later.

The box will hold the space for a rail link between the future Hudson tunnel and existing tracks at Penn Station — and for the proposed Moynihan Station if it’s ever built.

Although Gateway might not be built for years, the box tunnel — to be built astride a Long Island Rail Road right-of-way — must be built immediately because it will be impossible once Related constructs a deck over the rail yard.

Instead, Related will build the box tunnel this year and next simultaneous with construction of the Coach tower and other elements of the 26-acre site, Schumer said.

Amtrak will pay for the project, estimated to cost from $120 million to $150 million, out of funds it will receive through the Federal Transit Administration, a division of the Department of Transportation.

It's still years away before the full project is funded, let alone built, but this segment guarantees that the space is accessible and able to handle the Amtrak-led project.

Amtrak's Testing of 165mph Train Wont Bring Immediate Changes

Amtrak needs to increase the speed of its trains on the Northeast Corridor. Doing so would make its Acela service even more preferable for those commuting between Washington DC, New York, and Boston.

Currently, the top speeds in most areas is no more than 125 mph in regular service.

Amtrak is testing a segment in New Jersey between New Brunswick and Trenton at 165 mph over the next several nights. Amtrak's using this as an opportunity to run tests on equipment.

Two test locations — from Perryville, Md., to Wilmington, Del., and from Trenton to New Brunswick, N.J. — currently have a speed limit of 135 mph. The two others — in Rhode Island from Westerly to Cranston and in Massachusetts from South Attleboro to Readville — have 150 mph limits.

The same areas, totaling just over 100 miles, were used for tests reaching 165 mph in the 1990s before the introduction of high-speed Acela service, Cole said. Federal regulations required another round of testing, he said, to further raise the top speed limit.

Cole said the tests, with cars equipped with instruments to collect a variety of data, will not affect normal rail operations because they are scheduled at a time of minimal rail service.

In New Jersey, track, electric power, signals and other systems are to be upgraded over the next several years to improve reliability and to permit regular train operations at faster speeds, as part of a $450 million project funded by the federal high-speed rail program.

There are several factors holding back true high speed rail and they are mostly related to an archaic infrastructure.

For starters, the electrical systems need to be upgraded to a constant tension system. That includes the catenary system through New Jersey and that's part of the $450 million in upgrades to come over the next few years. The other part is dealing with a string of bottlenecks that reduce the number of tracks, including at the Portal Bridge and Hudson River tunnels. Those two projects mean that speeds from Newark into Manhattan can be no more than 70 mph.

Constructing a new Portal Bridge has been in the works for years, but its fate has been tied to the Gateway/ARC plan. Even if Gateway is still years away from being funded, the Portal Bridge should move ahead and that would pay immediate dividends in increasing speeds from Secaucus through to Newark. It would provide a more reliable link and that's in everyone's best interests.

But the thing to remember is that these tests wont pay immediate dividends and trains wont begin running at these speeds in revenue service for another few years, which is a tremendous shame since even doing so for these short segments could cut 7 minutes off service between New York and Washington (30 mile segment increase to 165 mph. As the high speed expands to other sections, the speeds could likewise result in cutting significant time off the trip.

Moreover, 165 mph isn't where Amtrak needs to be setting its sights. Speeds over 200mph should be. Doing so would revolutionize travel along the NEC and provide highly competitive travel as compared with flying in all too crowded skies and overburdened airports that are struggling to maintain their current flight schedules.

Failing to Spend on Infrastructure Main Driver of NJ Transit Rail Delays

This is something I've been harping on for years. NJ Transit has failed to maintain its infrastructure, but Amtrak's deficiencies are driving the delays on those NJ Transit trains that use the Northeast Corridor. That includes the functionally obsolete Portal Bridge between Newark and Secaucus. 75 events involving the Portal Bridge led to delays across NJ Transit. Signal problems are another major source of delays. And the NJ Transit reporting of delays is itself skewed. It considers a train to be on time if it arrives up to 6 minutes late. When NJ Transit trains are supposed to be timed with connecting trains or PATH, the six minute difference can lead to more commuter misery with additional delays. Clearly, everyone recognizes the need to replace the Portal Bridge, but apparently no one has decided to start work on the project or set aside the funds to make it happen. It's been tied into a larger Northeast Corridor plan to upgrade rail speed and the construction of the Gateway Tunnel. That isn't necessary. The bridge can be built well ahead of any decisions on Gateway. Relieving that bottleneck will improve efficiencies and improve reliability. Another reason for the problems is that spending on infrastructure and repairs hasn't kept up with inflation, so the money isn't going far enough. In the end, commuters don't care who owns the lines or is responsible for the repairs; they want to see them done.

Amtrak's $151 Billion Northeast Corridor Wishlist, and California's HSR Boondoggle

Let the numbers sink in.

$151 billion.

220 mph high speed rail between Washington DC and Boston, enabling 37 minute trips between Philadelphia and New York City, and 94 minute trips between Boston and New York or New York and Washington DC.

That was the promise once envisioned for the Northeast Corridor (NEC) when Amtrak settled for the Acela service that ended up being less than half that speed. Those kinds of numbers would get me out of my car and head down to DC or Baltimore to catch ballgames on the weekend and would make business travel even more convenient for those all along the NEC.

Now, Amtrak is resurrecting the true high speed rail vision for the Northeast Corridor. It has the potential to be a game changer considering that those trips would be a fraction of the time spent flying between those destinations (not counting the travel time from the airport to the city center or the security checks).

Current travel times from New York to Philadelphia on Amtrak's sleek Acela trains are 1 hour, 15 minutes. Travel between New York and Washington currently takes 2 hours, 45 minutes and New York to Boston takes 3 hours, 41 minutes, according to Amtrak's website.

"The NEC (Northeast Corridor) region is America's economic powerhouse and is facing a severe crisis with an aging and congested multi-model transportation network that routinely operates at or near capacity in key segments," Amtrak's President Joe Boardman said in a statement.

The traditionally cash-starved railroad is funded by Congress, where Republicans have been reluctant to finance prior plans to develop high-speed rail in the United States.

Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm acknowledged a lack of federal support but said there were other funding options.

"You have to have a plan and if you have a plan, the money will follow," Kulm said.

Among the sources was $450 million in funding turned down by the state of Florida for a high-speed rail proposal there that will instead be used for rail improvements in New Jersey.

Starting sometime in the 2020s, the hyper speedy "NextGen" trains will replace Acela trains, which were first introduced in 2000, Kulm said.

The newest Amtrak improvement plan also calls for direct links to airports and listed Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore and White Plains, New York, as possible candidates for Amtrak service. Some are already served by local commuter rail lines, such as Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which connects to the Philadelphia International Airport.

"The vision we will shape with the Northeastern states, Amtrak and all of our stakeholders will outlast the vagaries of politics, budgets and critics," said Joseph Szabo, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, which oversees Amtrak, of the 2012 report.

There's more than a little to be critical of when discussing Amtrak's record on high speed rail and upgrading its infrastructure. It has consistently lagged behind on its maintenance and upgrades of infrastructure, and while it has moved ahead with bridge replacement projects elsewhere on the NEC, particularly in Connecticut, the three major bottlenecks on the system are in New Jersey - the Portal Bridge, the tunnels into Manhattan, and the Harold Interlocking, which is Sunnyside Queens where LIRR, NJ Transit, and Amtrak trains have to pass through in a coordinated ballet to keep everything resembling a schedule. Those projects would apparently be included in the overall $151 billion approach.

Something has to give on the costs involved. There's no reason why Amtrak's costs to upgrade are anything approaching $335 million a mile for the NEC between Boston and DC. It costs France's SCNF far less to build a mile of new rail, but that has to be tempered by the fact that the Amtrak right of way is seriously constrained because of urban development throughout the NEC and acquisition costs would be far higher in the US. Still, there are ways that Amtrak can and should bring the costs to upgrade the system down.

Still, $151 billion as spread over 30 years is something approaching $5 billion a year - a major infusion of money but not nearly as eye popping. This is investment in infrastructure and it would mean tens of thousands of construction jobs up and down the East Coast. It would mean steelmakers and fabricators would be supplying new rail and equipment. Technology companies would be providing equipment to make the system more reliable. Engineering firms would be generating jobs for those to design and build the network.

In other words, while Amtrak would be spending the money, it would be private enterprises that are generating the jobs and revenues that would have long term benefits to the local and national economy. It would also build a robust backup to the creaking air travel system.

It's also worth noting that California is about ready to delve into a high speed boondoggle of its own where it's proposing to build a high speed rail network not to connect San Francisco with San Diego via Los Angeles, but rather, inland where there's a fraction of the population to support such a network. It was a political decision so that the money could be obtained, not because it made economic sense.

The California HSR project route was decided not because of practicality or revenue, but by which parts of the state would be able to get it to run through their communities, even though it would mean tearing up farmland and requiring condemnation of land (eminent domain). Instead of using a routing that required fewer eminent domain proceedings and a more direct route, they chose the one that had the political backing. So, California will find itself with a HSR that few will end up using, cost more than it should, and everyone will point to it as a reason not to do HSR in the US.

The HSR setup in France and Japan is similar to an airport hub and spoke approach. You build the hubs in the major urban centers, and connect those with HSR. As the system grows, you can expand the HSR to secondary satellite communities and then with urban rail networks. This way, you maximize population density that would take advantage of the HSR, you can achieve travel times that can not only meet but beat air travel (especially considering the time to pass through security, to say nothing of having to travel to an airport that is frequently on the outskirts of the city, not the city center as most rail facilities are located).

Amtrak's Northeast corridor is the opposite approach - it's already a profitable route for Amtrak and if Amtrak could get the system up to speeds approaching HSR found in Europe or Asia, it could not only win commuters away from the airlines, but it would reduce congestion in the air- improving the travel for fliers too since commuter flights between Boston, DC, and New York are a significant cause for delays throughout the US airspace because of congestion at the New York area airports. It's all the more reason to throw support behind the Amtrak plan. It has a path to profitability and generating economic development to say nothing of jobs.

UPDATE:
The Amtrak documentation can be found here. It's a manageable 42 page document, complete with charts, graphs, and how the new right of way would be organized. It would essentially create a 4-track express/local track configuration with the express track capable of handling the HSR.

Capital investment would be phased in - with the section around New York City being key to the overall strategy. That means getting the Gateway/Portal Bridge/Harold Interlocking done is critical to the overall strategy. It also means a significant chunk of the $151 billion is going to the New York metro area for design and construction. Considering that the Portal Bridge is estimated to run $1.3-1.8 billion, while the Gateway Tunnel is another $13-15 billion ($14.7 billion as per page 24). Page 31 addresses the segment costs. Interestingly, rolling stock is the lowest cost of the entire package - $5.2 billion, which makes sense since the infrastructure construction costs are the lion's share of the project.

It also addresses expanding existing capacity - including acquiring 40 additional Acela express passenger cars to lengthen train-sets by 2015 (expanding capacity by 40%). By 2020, Amtrak hopes to acquire new high-speed train sets (doubling service from NYC to DC) as well as complete the Portal Bridge and Harold Interlocking/Sunnyside Yards projects as well as upgrading the power systems through New Jersey.

By 2025, it hopes to get Gateway Tunnel done and to finally get more regularly scheduled Acela trips between NYC and DC and Boston. It's only by 2040 that the full HSR would be realized.

The document also provides new renderings for the Moynihan Station, which would expand Penn Station under the Farley Post Office. It wouldn't expand capacity, but rather rejigger space under the post office and MSG.

What's interesting is that the HSR plan for the NEC would include an entirely new alignment inland from New Rochelle, New York through Providence, Rhode Island. The alignment wouldn't change south of New York City. A newly configured Shoreline Express would cover those cities covered by the current NY to Boston alignment, with regional service supplementing service.

The Amtrak vision also indicates that there would be express and super express service - direct NYC to DC and NYC to DC routings - with no intermediate stops. Other trains would stop at designated city stops.

The Amtrak plans for rolling stock - the locomotives and train sets, would depend greatly on whether the FRA would allow an off-the-shelf solution or needing to build a system from the ground up. Frankly, it would be far cheaper to go with an off-the-shelf system, but that would mean likely buying from a foreign source (think France, Japan, or other European or Asian providers).

The Star Ledger Doesn't Get It On ARC/Gateway Tunnel

The Star Ledger's editorial page doesn't get it when it comes to talking about the ARC tunnel and its successor, the Gateway Project.

It laments the billions that Gov. Chris Christie supposedly left on the table by killing the project because overruns would have been a multibillion dollar hit on New Jersey taxpayers.

Plans for a new rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan took a nasty PR hit in 2010, when Gov. Chris Christie pulled the plug on the ARC tunnel, citing billions in potential cost overruns to the state.

That concern was reasonable, if overblown. But he left billions of federal dollars on the table that we might not get back. And his real motive, it seems, was to grab the money set aside by Gov. Jon Corzine, so that he wouldn’t have to raise the gas tax.

The ARC tunnel would have doubled rail capacity — helping commuters get to high-paying Manhattan jobs and increasing property values in New Jersey. It was set for completion in 2018. But Christie didn’t have a Plan B. A tunnel is still needed, and he isn’t committed to the Gateway plan.

Even that 2025 date will cause hardship. NJ Transit says tweaks — adding double-decker buses, encouraging commuters to use ferries and PATH trains — could wring another decade out of the existing transit system. That gets us to 2022.
After that? Doomsday.

Let's just ignore the fact that Gov. Corzine fast-tracked the ARC project to get it underway before he left office, ignoring the fact that NJ Transit has never been able to contain costs on its infrastructure projects.

The federal government understood this as they estimated the overruns to be anywhere from $1 to $5 billion, and the feds further refused to cover any cost overruns on this interstate project. Had the federal government wanted to keep the project going, it would have ponied up a deal to cover cost overruns. It knew, or had reason to know, that the overruns would be more than what NJ Transit was willing to admit, and there was no way that they would do so. Instead, they let Christie kill the project and touch off the ensuing political finger pointing.

Amtrak is better suited to be the lead agency on the Gateway tunnel project because it assures that the rail connections under Manhattan lead to a high speed rail setup, and not just a tunnel ending without any place to store trains when they are done with the run into Manhattan. The ARC project was ill-conceived and the Gateway tunnel is a far more practical approach to getting new capacity.

That doesn't mean that there aren't capacity issues with the existing infrastructure - there most certainly are.

However, NJ Transit has cut its capacity all while raising fares because it lacks the operating funds to run as many trains and there's no timetable on when those cuts would ever be restored (something that they admitted during a recent customer survey blitz in Hoboken). That means that the supposed 1-seat ride into Manhattan wouldn't happen, or it would mean reduced service to Hoboken - far from an ideal situation.

It's also interesting that New York, which stands to benefit greatly from whatever tunnel project is built, hasn't put up funding to cover its end of the deal. That's another reason why Christie killed the ARC project. ARC's funding structure was disproportionately hitting New Jersey residents, while New York gained benefits without contributing its fair share.

The Gateway project is truly an interstate venture, as it produces a major upgrade to the NEC - an interstate corridor and the only real high speed rail option for the country (the Acela service isn't anywhere near European or Japanese standards, but it's the closest thing that the US has in service). Upgrading the stretch in New Jersey through Queens, New York would shave significant time on a Washington DC to Boston run.

It's a project that has to get done, but the Star Ledger also oversells the benefits to New Jersey. Values cannot be expected to rise without additional service by NJ Transit. If the agency can't increase its operating budget to provide more service, it doesn't matter what kind of capacity is available.

The Turbo Trains To Nowhere

Back when I was going to college in Albany, I had occasion to take Amtrak and from New York City. More than a few times, I was on a Turbo Train, which was faster than the standard service by about 10-15 minutes.

When Governor George Pataki was in office, he touted a proposal to upgrade the New York to Albany line for high speed rail and even had a deal in place with Amtrak to upgrade service, including refurbishing several of the Turbo trains for high speed service.

Well, needless to say, the project went off the rails. New York still lacks the high speed rail corridor, but the state is still on the hook for the costs of storing the four Turbo trains that it had obtained from Amtrak.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now dealing with the residual mess - and is going to be selling off the trains for scrap because they've been allowed to rust in place.

But the necessary track improvements never happened. Trains that the state paid $70 million to refurbish did not work. Then the state accused Amtrak of stealing several of them by towing them to Delaware and never bringing them back.

Four trains remain as monuments to the disastrous project. For years, the state paid more than $150,000 annually to rent a space to house the trains in Glenville, as well as a warehouse for spare parts in a Rotterdam industrial park.

“This is New York State’s $70 million train to nowhere,” said Howard B. Glaser, the director of state operations, who called the abandoned trains a glaring example of “waste and incompetence.”

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has made a priority of consolidating government offices and trying to sell surplus state property, from automobiles to state prisons. His administration says it has already netted more than $1 million via an eBay store.

On Thursday, his aides said they would now try to sell the unused trains and their spare parts, probably for scrap.

Even by Albany standards, the high-speed line offers a reminder of how a much-heralded government project can fall apart — literally, in the case of the boarded-up, weed-infested trains. The state is still paying off bonds that financed a portion of the train project, even though it never succeeded, said Robert L. Megna, the state’s budget director.

The track improvements never happened and that meant that the locomotives couldn't ever get up to speed. New York was forced to cover storage costs at more than $150,000 a year.

The fact is that had the tracks been upgraded, it would have represented a clear opportunity for high speed rail. The line was uniquely suited for the purpose - it's a high traffic route that feeds into the NEC at New York Penn Station, and could have served as a demonstrator route for upgrades elsewhere in the country. But the project was starved of funding and Amtrak botched its end of the project almost as badly as the state botched its side.

But at least I can say that I took one of those Turbo trains before they went off the rails.

Phase One of NY Penn Station Upgrade Begins This Summer

It's been a long time coming, but the Moynihan train station construction project's first phase will be getting underway this summer.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced Tuesday the $270 million first phase of the project that includes expanded concourses and extra entryways on the western end of the station. The adjacent James Farley post office will also become a new passenger facility.

The new terminal will be named after late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who championed the project beginning in the 1990s.

Port Authority executive director Patrick Foye says NJ TRANSIT riders who now have to walk nearly two crosstown blocks underground will be able to get into the station or above ground quicker.

“It’s going to involve doubling the length and width of the concourse,” Foye told WCBS 880′s Peter Haskell.

The second phase will turn the basement of the post office into Amtrak’s new terminal.

The project attempts to recreate the original Penn Station's grand rail entrance to New York City, which was demolished to make way for the current incarnation of Madison Square Garden. The work involves creating new concourses, two new entry points on the west side of Penn Station, and should be completed by 2016.

Phase 2 would involve rehabilitating the post office building and build new retail and commercial spaces within the post office building. No funding has been identified for the second phase.

More Fallout From the GAO Report On ARC Tunnel and More Misleading Editorializations

Charles Stiles seems to think that Gov. Chris Christie was concerned more about the politics of looking like a fiscal conservative than doing the right thing in canceling the ARC tunnel project. He claims that the GAO report bolsters claims that Gov. Christie misled the public about who would be responsible for cost overruns.

The GAO report claims that New Jersey would be on the hook for 17% of the overruns, not 70% as Christie had claims, but let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

The possibility that taxpayers would get “stuck” with the bill seems like a long shot. New Jersey’s share of the project didn’t come from the $32 billion state budget, but from Jersey’s allotment of Port Authority project money, a smaller piece from New Jersey Turnpike toll collections, and from federal transportation dollars that flow through NJ Transit. Those sources would have been the likely targets to pay for overruns, not direct state funds financed by taxpayers through income, sales and corporate taxes.

“They definitely left the impression that it wasn’t the Port Authority, it was the state that was paying the cost of the overruns,’’ said Patrick Murray, a Monmouth University pollster and political analyst.

Overall, the GAO report reminds us of Christie’s aggressive salesmanship skills, his ability to stretch and piece together facts to make a compelling argument, and then using his bully pulpit to sell it or browbeat critics who have the temerity to challenge him.

Who exactly is paying for the cost overruns? NJ Transit, which is a state agency and receives state and federal funding, will have to divert its limited budget to cost overruns, forcing both additional fare hikes and state appropriations that will have to come from New Jersey taxpayers.

Port Authority cost overages will have to likewise be split between fare hikes, toll hikes, and that too falls on New Jersey and other taxpayers who utilize Port Authority facilities such as bridges, tunnels, and PATH system. It means that projects that the Port Authority would have otherwise considered for improvements would have been shelved shelved in order to complete the ARC project even as the Port Authority's budget is already stretched as a result of cost overruns on the PATH transit hub at the World Trade Center.

All the cost overruns would have eventually flowed back to taxpayers, despite which agency was allotted the overrun. Directly or indirectly, the cost overruns would have inured to New Jersey taxpayers and the bottom line from the GAO report and the FTA was that NJ Transit could not hold the line on cost overruns.

NJ Transit has repeatedly shown itself incapable of doing so, and it could not be expected to do so with the most ambitious and complicated project the agency has undertaken since it was established. The last time NJ Transit attempted an ambitious project of this sort, the $80 million budget on the Secaucus Transfer turned into a boondoggle of a $450 million underutilized project that would itself be obsolete and largely sidestepped if the ARC tunnel was completed because there would be no need to transfer between the Main/Bergen/Pascack lines and the NEC because everyone could take a one-seat ride to New York Penn Station.

Meanwhile, others are claiming that the ARC tunnel would have created thousands of jobs and improved the local economy. That is true, to a point. Construction jobs would have been created, but let's not forget that it was the federal government that refused to pick up the cost overruns that led Gov. Christie to kill the project. It was the feds that refused to push New York to pick up its share of the costs. The overruns would have hit New Jersey hardest, even though this was an interstate project. Ray LaHood could have picked up the cost overruns and forced NJ Transit into cost containment methodologies that would have protect New Jersey taxpayers. He didn't. Instead, he left the bulk of the overruns to be picked up through debt financing. That's not a solution. That's a punt into the future when he and other federal, state, and local politicians will be in office to deal with the financial mess left by the project.

And that doesn't even touch on just how ill-conceived the project was because of its terminus in New York and the additional costs that would inure to NJ Transit to operate that facility years and decades into the future.

That's where the Gateway Tunnel comes into play. This proposed project is superior to the ARC in every conceivable manner. It increases thru-traffic by doubling the number of trains that would run into New York Penn Station. It provides high speed rail access. It spreads the costs of construction among all the interested parties, including New York and New Jersey and puts Amtrak as the lead agency. It accomplishes everything that ARC did, without the problems associated with the lack of tail tracks and storage facilities.

The only thing that Gateway lacks is the funding mechanisms in place. That's the only thing that ARC had going for it. New Jersey's Gov. Jon Corzine, Senators Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez all managed to get the funding in place for the ill-conceived project, and it's Lautenberg who is whining loudest that the project was killed. He's taking it personally, even though it was he and Menendez who should have been burning up the phone lines to see to it that the federal government and New York pick up the overruns instead of saddling New Jersey taxpayers will the bill.

When Gov. Christie killed the ARC, the funding that was in place reverted to their sources, and that includes monies from the New Jersey transportation trust fund and Port Authority. That enables the Port Authority to go ahead with other vital projects, including raising the Bayonne Bridge for super Panamax shipping traffic to keep the New Jersey ports competitive and bridge and tunnel projects like replacing the stringers on the George Washington Bridge and replacing the helix at the Lincoln tunnel. The Transportation Trust Fund monies will be made available to rebuild deficient roads across the state.

It's not like that the money is going to waste - they're being used to fix and replace existing infrastructure, but it means that new sources have to be devoted to building the new Gateway project.

That's where Lautenberg and the other politicians have to get together and put together a fiscally prudent financial package that gets the project done in a timely and efficient manner.

GAO Report Misleads Over Scrapped ARC Tunnel Numbers

The NY Times is reporting that the General Accountability Office is disputing figures put out by Gov. Chris Christie last year when he killed the ARC tunnel project on the basis of cost overruns that all parties conceded were likely to run $1 billion but potentially up to $5 billion more than the cost estimate.

The report claims:

The report by the Government Accountability Office, to be released this week, found that while Mr. Christie said that state transportation officials had revised cost estimates for the tunnel to at least $11 billion and potentially more than $14 billion, the range of estimates had in fact remained unchanged in the two years before he announced in 2010 that he was shutting down the project. And state transportation officials, the report says, had said the cost would be no more than $10 billion.

Mr. Christie also misstated New Jersey’s share of the costs: he said the state would pay 70 percent of the project; the report found that New Jersey was paying 14.4 percent. And while the governor said that an agreement with the federal government would require the state to pay all cost overruns, the report found that there was no final agreement, and that the federal government had made several offers to share those costs.

That is contradicted by the various reports that came out during the timeframe when Christie was seeking to get the federal government to share cost overruns or to have New York pick up a share.

The federal government's plan for picking up cost overruns was to backstop the plan with New Jersey taking on more debt. It offered to pick up a paltry $350 million in overruns, when New Jersey taxpayers would be on the hook for all overruns over that amount with no chance for reimbursement from the feds or New York. If the Obama Administration was truly interested in pursuing this shovel ready project and to increase mass transit capacity, it could have gotten a deal done by taking on the cost overruns. It chose not to do so because it recognized that bottomless pit of overruns that were beyond its own control. NJ Transit could not be trusted in containing costs.

Federal officials had previously acknowledged that NJ Transit, the lead build agency on the ARC project couldn't contain costs and that costs already expended were significantly over budget. Moreover, I've repeatedly pointed out that NJ Transit can't afford to operate any new facilities - it can barely keep existing facilities fully staffed and maintained. A new facility may look great for photo ops for politicians, but the operating budget has been slashed to the point that service has been cut across both bus and rail schedules.

Then, there's the fact that even the most conservative estimates - the $1 billion in overruns, is subject to revision and that the costs would likely exceed that amount.

The fact is that the ARC project was poorly conceived and that the successor tunnel project, Gateway, is a better conceived project that will accomplish far more than the ARC project ever could.

For starters, Amtrak is the lead build agency, which makes sense for an interstate rail project that anticipates increasing high speed rail connectivity as a result of the project. It would expand Amtrak capacity as well as NJ Transit service into Penn Station. High speed trains would have direct access and be able to bypass bottlenecks into New York, resulting in a significant cost and time savings. The ARC project would have done nothing for high speed rail and would have increased NJ Transit access to the new platforms, but would have significantly increased NJ Transit costs because there was no place for trains once they disembarked passengers. There was no way to store trains at the site, and there was no thru-track access to Sunnyside Yards in Queens, where NJ Transit and Amtrak share space with MTA trains into Penn Station. NJ Transit would have been forced to send empty trains back to some undisclosed location in New Jersey until needed - increasing train congestion without paying customers. That's just idiotic.

In fact, the Port Authority has a similar problem with storage of buses at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It can't keep buses on site or nearby for the evening rush, so they're sent back into New Jersey to await passengers, and that increases costs to the bus companies, including New Jersey. The ARC project would have resulted in the same problem for NJ Transit.

MTA Kills 7 Train Proposal To Secaucus, Leaving Gateway As Only Proposed Cross-Hudson Transit Expansion Project

MTA Chairman Joe Lhota has effectively killed any chance for the 7 Train to be extended to Secaucus. He cites the costs of building out the line and the need to build a maintenance yard in New Jersey.

Lhota has a point - the MTA can barely afford its existing system and is already over budget on existing expansion or renovation projects, including the 7 Line extension to the Javits Center, the Second Avenue Subway that is only funded through completion of the phase 1 stub, and the Fulton Street Transit Hub. It can't afford to take on a major undertaking such as the extension to New Jersey without any funding in place.

New York City isn't ponying up the funds, nor is New York State. New Jersey has been open to the idea, particularly after Gov. Christie killed the abortive ARC tunnel project because cost overruns could run from a conservative $1 billion over budget to $5 billion or more, with New Jersey taxpayers on the hook for any overages, but the real transit expansion option is the Gateway tunnel project.

That's not funded to any degree worth speaking about. It barely has enough funding to get to keep the name, despite the critical need to eliminate a bottleneck on the Northeast Corridor and to expand high speed rail for Amtrak and NJ Transit traffic. Amtrak would be the lead agency, which makes sense on an interstate project, but funding is caught up in politics and isn't likely to be in place anytime soon.

A Misguided Plan For Penn Station and Madison Square Garden

The NY Times' Michael Kimmelmann has proposed that instead of building the Moynihan Station that would only accommodate Amtrak and leave nearly 500,000 people to deal with the horrible commute through the subterranean Penn Station beneath Madison Square Garden, that the City, MTA, and the Dolans (who own the Garden) should relocate Penn Station and the Garden to the far West Side's Hudson Yards.

A more ridiculous proposal I could not think of. We're talking about moving a major transit hub out of the Midtown hub because the station is ugly and outdated at a time when New Yorkers and New Jerseyeans are complaining about the out-of-control costs for the PATH transit hub at the World Trade Center that would service a fraction of the daily users claimed for Penn Station.

On a more practical level, the move makes no sense since there are no subways other than the soon to be completed 7 Line extension that would reach the site being proposed by Kimmelmann.

The whole point of the Penn Station hub at its current location is that it provides access to a whole host of subway lines, including the 1,2,3,A,C,E, which service more than 140,000 every day (2010 figures). The proposed location would have no connections and leave commuters no options to get to their ultimate destination.

I understand the lure of building a new station/terminal along with a new Garden at the Hudson Yards, but it's a development project that makes little sense on paper or on financial grounds.

UPDATE:
A few further thoughts. The proposed project does nothing to increase the number of tracks or platforms to maximize commuter flow, nor does it do anything about the bottlenecks on either the Hudson River or East River - it doesn't address the need for new tunnels (Gateway on Hudson Side) and apparently 4 tracks are sufficient on the East River. Capacity would be roughly the same.

Meanwhile, the MTA budget on the Fulton Street project that doesn't add capacity is more than twice what was estimated, and the South Street Ferry was likewise overbudget.

Existing infrastructure needs to be overhauled to be sure, and increased capacity needs to be built - the 2d Avenue line for instance for its entire stretch (to Hanover Square), not merely the phase underway from 96th to 63rd Street. All that costs money, and right now, prettifying Penn Station is a low profile compared to what the MTA must do.

MTA Decides To Fast Track East Side Access Project

One has to wonder why the Department finally came around to fast tracking the long-delayed East Side Access project considering that such a move would have helped save costs over the life of the project and would have provided much-needed facilities access for commuters.

The East Side Access project allows LIRR trains to access Grand Central Terminal through newly constructed tunnels bored beneath the East River from Sunnyside Yards. Previously, LIRR trains would have to go to either Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn or Penn Station on the West Side of Manhattan. For those commuting to Midtown on the East Side, it would result in a far longer commute that was less reliable.

By building the East Side Access, LIRR and MTA officials could improve reliability, expand commuter options, and upgrade facilities at Grand Central Terminal.

The scope of the project is daunting in its complexity:

Upon completion of the project, which is expected to happen by 2016, the new terminal will have eight new station tunnels — each with a diameter of 22 feet — will expand the total number of tracks from 67 to 75, and will add another four platforms taking the total number in the Terminal to 48.

A new mezzanine will provide stores, restaurants, bars, food halls, public amenities and other facilities.

The tunnel length will stretch approximately 7,200 feet — from 37th St. up to 63rd St. The area of the mezzanine will take up to 60,000 square feet, an MTA spokesman said.

The lower platform levels will take up to nearly 48,000 square feet, while the upper platform sections will measure out to 46,000 square feet and the concourse itself will take up 350,000 square feet.

The project is considered perhaps the most ambitious and challenging one undertaken by the MTA in recent years, and comes as other major transportation projects across the city have been mired with budget constraints, including Moynihan Station, which is one day destined to become a gleaming rail hub.

Not for nothing, the project has been behind schedule for the past couple of years and wasn't expected to be completed before 2016. Now, it appears that the project is on schedule for completion in 2013.

Yet, when the project was originally conceived, it was expected to be in revenue service in 2012 (that would be this year). The Federal Transit Administration believed that the project would not be completed before the fourth quarter of 2018 as the MTA noted a 2016 completion date just a few months ago. And it doesn't begin to go into the spiraling costs of construction. East Side Access is now expected to cost $7.4 billion when completed, though the FTA thinks it will be over $8 billion. The project was originally sold to the public on a cost basis of $3 billion when initially proposed to more than $7 billion.

Part of the issue is that the costs are purposefully minimized so as to get the project started, and additional funding will come later. It also is the result of unanticipated issues that arise during construction and other related issues. However, it is also the result of the MTA inability to manage projects of this size and scope and keep them on budget and on schedule. Mind you that the Sunnyside Yards are the focus of several high profile projects to upgrade rail access in and out of New York City (upgrading and separating the interlocking to permit high speed rail for Amtrak to Boston, additional capacity for subways and commuter rail, and the East Side Access project).

It is curious that the MTA now finds that they can proceed with the fast tracking of East Side Access at this time.

Mayor Bloomberg Pushing Ahead With 7 Line Expansion To Secaucus

While New York is looking at the replacement of the Tappan Zee bridge and Amtrak is contemplating the Gateway tunnel project, New York City's Mayor Mike Bloomberg is forging ahead with a proposal to expand the 7 Line to Secaucus along much of the right of way that would have been utilized by the cancelled ARC tunnel.

In fact, Gov. Chris Christie, who killed the ARC project, appears to be for the project and is letting Bloomberg take the lead.

The cross-Hudson tunnel would connect to the 7 train, which is being extended from Time Square to a new terminal at 11th Avenue and 34th Street. The current project will be completed in 14 months.
The next steps in the process are a full business plan and environmental-impact study, which have not yet been commissioned.
During his weekly radio appearance on WOR Friday, Bloomberg didn’t reveal his enthusiasm for the project, saying only, “If there’s money for it and it makes sense, I’d certainly support it.”
But yesterday, Bloomberg spokeswoman Julie Wood sounded a more optimistic note: “Since we began exploring this idea, we continue to think it has a lot of potential as a way to cost-effectively improve regional transportation and also create thousands of jobs.”
Officials in the Christie administration and the Port Authority are working with City Hall on the No. 7 concept, but insist that the mayor take the lead.
Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said yesterday, “We have been intrigued all along by this as a potential alternative.”

A year ago, Bloomberg was reluctant to pony up any dough when Christie killed a New York-New Jersey tunnel project called ARC, or Access to the Region’s Core. That project called for a new tunnel for NJ Transit commuter trains to be built from Secaucus to Herald Square.

Christie said ARC’s design was flawed, and its price tag was no longer reasonable after ballooning to a range of $11 billion to $14 billion -- up from $8.7 billion.

Early estimates say a No. 7 tunnel could be built for less than $10 billion, a sum that would be split among the city, the PA and New Jersey. Officials are also planning to hit up the feds for cash.

Extending the No. 7 to New Jersey would quickly become a key talking point in the mayor’s legacy.

The 7 Line is already being extended to 11th Avenue and 34th Street from Times Square. That segment is likely to go into revenue service in less than 2 years. If the 7 Line ran from Secaucus, a New Jersey commuter could transfer at Secaucus (the first stop) and have a one-seat ride into Queens (including Citifield) for Mets games.

Critics may complain that this doesn't provide the kind of one-seat ride that commuter rail across the Hudson would do, but that's rediculous. The NYC MTA subways operate 24/7/365, and that's far better service than NJ Transit provides. It would be a tremendous increase in cross-Hudson passenger capacity; far in excess of what NJ Transit would ever hope to achieve. Further, it would make true use of the Secaucus boondoggle - turning it into a true first-class transit hub ripe for development in New Jersey. It would mean that commuters would no longer have to go into Manhattan to catch the subway; they could do so from Secaucus and not have to hassle with bridge and tunnel tolls and traffic.

It's a win-win for everyone involved, but for the costs. The MTA is still cash-strapped, and they have other projects on their plate that are oft-delayed, including East Side Access and the 2d Avenue Subway. The debt load by the MTA is particularly concerning, especially since the state and city have raided the MTA coffers and/or reduced commitments for mass transit over the years. More and more of the MTA budget is being used for debt service, rather than capital budget or operating budget purposes. That will require an infusion of money to bring the system onto solid fiscal ground.

The Never Ending Story: Delays Plague Northeast Corridor Over Power Problems

Amtrak and NJ Transit have a broken record. It's called power problems on the Northeast Corridor causing extensive delays in and out of New York's Penn Station due to issues at the Hudson River tunnels.

And it's happened again. There are 30-60 minute delays or more along the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Lines and Midtown Direct service is going to Hoboken.

This is a problem that happens so frequently, it's almost better to recognize the few days where there aren't delays than to focus on the days when delays occur due to issues with the power systems that constantly break down or malfunction.

Building new Hudson River tunnels wont fix the problem. Replacing and modernizing the power systems throughout the region would. That's still an ongoing problem and the replacement and modernization is occurring in a piecemeal fashion and will take years before everything gets updated. The ongoing failure to maintain and upgrade services throughout the years has left the system dangerously close to collapse. Grafting a new tunnel onto the existing infrastructure will only give a veneer of improvement, but the power systems have to be improved or else the contemplated tunnels will not have the intended benefits.

Gov. Christie Gets His Way On Ending Sad ARC Chapter

When Governor Chris Christie killed the woeful ARC tunnel project that even boosters of mass transit said was a misbegotten plan that wouldn't relieve congestion and would saddle New Jersey taxpayers with anywhere from $1 to $5 billion in cost overruns, backers of the project slammed Christie for killing a project that was in the works for years and that would supposedly cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in repayments for federal funds already expended.

Well, Gov. Christie won that fight too. Instead of repaying $271 million, New Jersey will be on the hook for $95 million over five years, and the $1 million spent on legal fees to fight the repayment looks like money well spent.

The fact is that the ARC tunnel was a boondoggle that would have made the Secaucus Junction project look like child's play. NJ Transit has repeatedly shown itself incapable of bringing in projects on time and on schedule - especially larger projects like what was being contemplated.

Moreover, there were huge problems with the design. It wasn't that this was a tunnel to Macy's/Herald Square. It was that the tunnel would not relieve congestion like NJ Transit claimed it would; it would not have access to store trains in Sunnyside Yards, meaning that trains coming into the new terminal access would have to be sent back to New Jersey for storage between rush hours. It was a pitiful design considering all the money spent and it wasn't even the best of the alternatives considered.

Proponents of ARC came back and proposed another alternative, Gateway, which would be built under Amtrak auspices, and that proposal has a whole lot more going for it. For starters, it would bring truly high speed rail access to Manhattan, and increase the amount of NJ Transit trains into Manhattan. It just wouldn't bring as many trains as NJ Transit wished for (but which NJ Transit can't afford to run because the agency simply keeps cutting service because it lacks the capacity and operating budget to do so unless it raises fares). In fact, NJ Transit raised fares and cut service in the last round, and all the talk about a one-seat ride into Manhattan from Northern NJ is just that - talk. It wouldn't happen, and if it did, it would eliminate the need for having built Secaucus Transfer the way they did - for an obscene cost and which draws a fraction of the riders that it was originally intended to do. A one-seat ride would eliminate the reason for most of those using the station at all - to transfer between the Northern New Jersey train lines into NY Penn Station.

NJ Transit and Amtrak Again Suffer Power Problems At Hudson River Tunnels

This is an all too common occurrence. NJ Transit trains are stuck in the Hudson River tunnels and require diesel trains to rescue the trains because of power problems.

Not only does this affect all traffic along the Northeast Corridor, but it affects the commutes of people who rely on NJ Transit on a daily basis. Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line trains are subject to 45-60 minute delays due to single tracking into New York due to power problems. MidTOWN DIRECT trains are being diverted to Hoboken. Crossing honoring with PATH at Hoboken and Newark. So this affects users of PATH and NJ Transit commuters into Hoboken that will experience larger than normal crowds and for which NJ Transit habitually seems unprepared to deal with despite having had such traffic prior to Midtown Direct service (the institutional knowledge of how to deal with the increased traffic seems to have disappeared/been lost).

Amtrak needs to update its power systems along the entirety of the NEC, and doing so would improve the reliability for all uses.

The power systems are on the to-do list for Amtrak, and those improvements can't come soon enough for commuters who can't count on a reliable commute.

New Hudson River tunnels wouldn't solve the problem if the power systems aren't addressed - and that takes money and political effort by the New York and New Jersey delegations to make sure that the money gets to where it is needed.

Amtrak to Spend $450 Million on NEC Upgrades In New Jersey

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that Amtrak will spend $450 million to upgrade tracks and power systems in New Jersey that will enable the Acela trains to cruise along at 160 mph, which would be the fastest a passenger train can go in the United States. A total of $745 million will be spent by Amtrak nationally to upgrade services.

Critics are already deriding the spending on the high speed rail segment as costing $4.5 million per second improvement on speed in New Jersey, but they're ignoring the real issue here. These improvements are all about the power and rail reliability improvement. Speed is a secondary benefit. Critics are seizing upon the cost versus speed to claim that the project isn't worth it, but they ignore the costs of having an unreliable passenger rail/commuter rail system that is the most heavily used in the nation.

Power issues regularly cause massive delays along the entire Northeast Corridor (NEC) and spillover delays affect the LIRR and NJ Transit services. Power problems occur all too frequently and cost commuters billions of dollars over the years in lost opportunity costs and wasted time due to the problems.

Fixing the power issues will resolve a longstanding bottleneck along the NEC and will improve the reliability of Amtrak and NJ Transit.

The next step will be to replace the Portal Bridge, which everyone concedes requires replacement, but which has lacked funding because everyone tries to tie that bridge project together with the Hudson River tunnel projects (the cancelled ARC or the proposed Gateway). The Portal Bridge replacement would further improve reliability (just yesterday trains were delayed 15-20 minutes through the morning commute due to the bridge being opened for river traffic). The replacement bridge would allow higher speed through that segment of the NEC, but it would be a far more reliable component of the NEC than at present.

NJ Transit Goes Off Rails In Latest Customer Survey

NJ Transit has done an incredibly poor job in the past year following rate hikes and service cuts. That double whammy, combined with a series of ongoing problems along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) snarling traffic and ruining the commutes for hundreds of thousands of people daily has meant that the agency rightfully suffered in its latest customer survey.

The problems on the Northeast Corridor aren't always within the agency's control since the tracks and power systems are shared with Amtrak. However, NJ Transit has done a poor job in communicating about delays on those NEC trains.

The rail schedules also aren't conducive to getting people out of cars and onto mass transit; the schedules simply don't provide service into the evening, even though people would be willing to take mass transit into Manhattan to avoid the hassle of finding parking and dealing with the traffic in the city. The same people who commute regularly are likely to consider using mass transit at other times, but the rail schedule is lacking in many areas and service has been cut because the agency simply lacks the operating funds because they've blown so much money on projects that have not stayed within budget (see Secaucus junction aka the boondoggle, or the Ramsey Route 17 transit station that is sorely underutilized and two nearby stations remain open despite their close proximity).

The agency needs to orient itself better to customer needs and the top priority must be to reduce problems along the NEC and better communicate when problems do occur.

I've been relatively thankful that the conductors on my trains along the Bergen Line have been good at issuing updates on problems with the NEC, but that's an exception - and the statistics bear this out.

Clearly, riders see that fares and mechanical reliability are major problems - and they have been for years. The issues with mechanical reliability should have been resolved with the purchase of hundreds of new double-decker cars and refurbished Comet IV and V cars, along with dozens of new electric and diesel locomotives, but apparently the problems are much deeper than that. The problems are institutional. That goes to top management and all down the line.

UPDATE:
The agency is set to vote on a new budget, and it will be slightly higher than last year to account for higher fuel costs. No fare hikes are proposed in the budget, and while lip service is being paid to the survey, it remains to be seen whether NJ Transit can turn things around and improve on-time performance and performance during service disruptions.

NEC Commute Screwed Again Due To Power Problems

For the second time today - both occurring during the height of rush hour - all traffic in and out of Penn Station in New York is cancelled due to power problems.

Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Line and Midtown Direct service is temporarily suspended due to an Amtrak power supply problem. NJ TRANSIT passes and tickets will be accepted on NJ TRANSIT Bus and Private Carrier Buses. PATH is cross honoring rail tickets/passes at Newark, Hoboken and NYPS.

These delays are separate from weather related issues today affecting other parts of the NYC metro area.

This is an intolerable situation, and for those who think that NJ Transit and Amtrak should spend billions on building a new tunnel across the Hudson River, they ought to get their priorities straight. First and foremost is a dire need to replace and upgrade the electrical systems along the NEC, which cause regular problems and delays that affect the busiest rail corridor in the nation.