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.

Latest NJ Transit Customer Satisfaction Survey Leaves Riders Wanting

After receiving poor grades across the board on the first customer satisfaction survey earlier this year, NJ Transit got bad news when it released the results from the follow-up survey.

The results were even worse.

Of course, the results were skewed by several serious rail disruptions occurring just as the current survey was being distributed (derailments and major disruptions causing significant delays).

On a scale of 0 to 10, rail customers gave NJ Transit an overall grade of 4.2 in the agency's latest "Scorecard" customer satisfaction survey, down from 4.5 in April during the initial survey.

The score from bus customers went up slightly, from 5.5 in April to 5.6 in the latest survey.

For all modes of transportation, the systemwide NJ Transit score was 5.3, up from 5.2 percent in April.

The latest survey was taken by about 15,000 customers between Aug. 2 and Aug. 22. Smack in the middle of that time period was a train derailment outside New York Penn Station on Aug. 9 that led to two mornings of hellish commutes.

NJ Transit Executive Director Jim Weinstein, a rail commuter from Hamilton to Newark, said the Scorecard is the cornerstone to make the agency better and more responsive to customers.

The only way that the overall score could rise from 5.2 to 5.3 is if more bus riders were submitting surveys than rail users because the rail service was significantly worse during the latest period covered.

Service on the Main/Bergen line has been particularly bad, especially in the wake of Hurricane Irene and the disruptions on the Port Jervis line ended up affecting service due to poor planning and logistical issues in having equipment in place to handle the additional customers. Indeed, the agency all but admitted that they screwed up with a lack of information and they've eventually improved service.

Problems continually dog service along the Northeast Corridor, including power problems, Portal Bridge issues, and other delays that end up costing customers time and money.

There are no quick and easy fixes, but all customers want is to get prompt notifications when there are service disruptions so that they can have time to make alternative plans.

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.

Transportation Department Announces $2+ Billion In Rail Projects

Once Florida's Governor Rick Scott canceled the high speed rail project, other states scrambled to lay claim for projects in their state.

Today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced who would receive the funds.

The big winner?

For a change, it was the Northeast Corridor (NEC), including the segment in New Jersey. The NEC will be getting significant upgrades for its overhead catenary power lines from Pennsylvania through New Brunswick, New Jersey and the Portal Bridge will be getting funding:

In what the president of Amtrak termed the first step toward getting the Gateway commuter train tunnel from Secaucus to Manhattan, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced the Northeast Corridor rail line south of New Brunswick is getting $450 million for improvements that will allow speeds up to 160 mph.

Amtrak president Joe Boardman said the money – freed up after Florida rejected federal high-speed rail funds – will increase reliability on the Northeast Corridor, America’s busiest rail corridor.

He said replacing the Depression Era overhead catenary wires and upgrading the power are key components -- along with replacing the century-old Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River – in getting the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River.

"This is part of the Gateway project,” Boardman said from New York Penn Station, where the Gateway Tunnel would connect. “This is a critical hurdle.”

Replacing catenary wires and improving the electrification for Amtrak trains between New Brunswick and Morrisville, Pa., will improve reliability for the corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C., officials said.

Sagging or frayed wires are a frequent bane of Northeast Corridor travelers in New Jersey, causing delays and making a difficult commute harder.

Other Northeast Corridor improvements announced today were $22 million toward replacement of a century-old bridge in Maryland and $295 million to alleviate delays for trains coming in and out of Manhattan with new routes that allow Amtrak trains to bypass a busy passenger rail junction in Queens.

The Portal Bridge doesn't exactly receive funding under the proposals and it's again being tied with the more politically suspect Gateway Tunnel - which is the successor project to the canceled ARC Tunnel.

Regardless of what happens with the tunnel project, everyone agrees that the Portal Bridge must be replaced. It is one of the critical bottlenecks on the NEC. Improving the power infrastructure along the NEC is a major concern to eliminate ongoing issues particularly in the summer when the overhead wires frequently lose power or come down in storms, get entangled in equipment, or otherwise cause delays and congestion throughout the NEC. The overhead power lines are obsolete in many locations and Amtrak has been slowly upgrading those power lines but hasn't had the funds available to complete the job along the entire NEC.

The Portal Bridge is another piece that needs replacement and upgrade, and it should not be tied to other projects that are wound up in political squabbles.

Here's the rundown of all the projects affecting the NEC:

NORTHEAST CORRIDOR (NEC)
Amtrak – NEC Power, Signal, Track, Catenary Improvements – $450 million to boost capacity, reliability, and speed in one of the most heavily-traveled sections of the Northeast Corridor, creating a 24-mile segment of track capable of supporting train speeds up to 160-mph.

Maryland – NEC Bridge Replacement – $22 million for engineering and environmental work to replace the century-old Susquehanna River Bridge, which currently causes frequent delays for commuters due to the high volume of critical maintenance.

New York – NEC Harold Interlocking Amtrak Bypass Routes – $295 million to alleviate major delays for trains coming in and out of Manhattan with new routes that allow Amtrak trains to bypass the busiest passenger rail junction in the nation.

Rhode Island – NEC Kingston Track, Platform Improvements – $25 million for design and construction of an additional 1.5 miles of third track in Kingston, RI, so high-speed trains operating at speeds up to 150-mph can pass trains on a high-volume section of the Northeast Corridor.

Rhode Island – NEC Providence Station Improvements – $3 million for preliminary engineering and environmental work to renovate the Providence Station. These upgrades will enhance the passenger experience, keep the station in good working order and improve transit and pedestrian connectivity.

The Harold Interlocking is another source of delays, and a bypass would further increase speed on the NEC between New York and Boston.

Major Delays Once Again Hit Northeast Corridor; Highlighting Need For Additional Capacity

The moment an Amtrak train became disabled entering one of the two Hudson River tunnels entering Manhattan, the morning rush hour was a lost cause for anyone attempting to commute into Manhattan or even to Hoboken as a result of delays that mounted throughout the NJ Transit and Amtrak operations.

Those delays on the Northeast Corridor were 30-60 minutes (at a minimum), and because NJ Transit was diverting Midtown Direct trains to Hoboken, those who normally commute to Lower Manhattan or Hoboken/Jersey City were also hit with delays due to congestion.

On that latter point, I have to wonder why NJ Transit isn't better prepared to deal with the extra trains. After all, prior to the opening of Secaucus Transfer, Midtown Direct trains used to route into Hoboken and Hoboken could handle the traffic. Now, it appears that the institutional memory of how to deal with the extra trains is gone. It's something that needs to be fixed - and quickly, given that relief on replacing the Portal Bridge and construction of new Amtrak tunnels is still years off.

Speaking of the Portal Bridge project and the Gateway tunnel project, Amtrak has submitted a proposal to claim more than $1 billion to go to replacing the Portal Bridge and begin preliminary study work on the Gateway tunnel project from the more than $2 billion that Florida Gov. Rick Scott rejected when he killed Florida's high speed rail project.

The high-speed rail funds became controversial in some states after the 2010 elections, and Florida’s governor recently scuttled a project that was to receive $2.4 billion.

Under Amtrak’s proposal, New Jersey would have to contribute up to $150 million and Amtrak $570 million toward replacing the Portal Bridge, which connects Kearny and Secaucus and has been in use since 1910.

The movable bridge, which swings open to allow ships to pass, would be replaced with a high-level fixed bridge, removing a bottleneck often blamed for delays on Amtrak and NJ Transit.

Governor Christie approved the state’s commitment in an April 1 letter to DOT Secretary Raymond LaHood.

“The bridge is beyond its useful life, which is reflected in high maintenance costs and frequent failures, and resulting train delays,” Christie said in his letter. “Moreover, this project, which can commence almost immediately, will create approximately 6,000 much-needed jobs.”

Christie, a Republican, had dismissed arguments about job creation benefits last year when he halted construction on a new $8.7 billion NJ Transit tunnel project that his predecessor, Democrat Jon Corzine had begun in 2009.

That project, known as Access to the Region’s Core, had a $2.9 billion federal funding commitment, which New Jersey gave up. The state has also been ordered by LaHood’s department to repay $271 million the federal government had already spent on the project, but New Jersey has hired a Washington law firm to contest the charge.

Amtrak’s application to DOT also seeks $188 million for preliminary engineering and environmental analysis on two new high-speed tunnels, and $50 million for similar work on a new Penn Station South with additional tracks and platforms. This preliminary work is slated to be finished in June 2015.

The Record's report ignores that Christie's central argument to killing the ARC project was that the state would have been on the hook for all cost overruns relating to the ARC project, and that would have been at least $1 billion. Taxpayers could have been exposed to up to $5 billion in overruns, and attempts to get New York or the federal government to cover those overruns came to naught. The fact that the federal government refused to cover the overruns showed just how flawed the financing of the project was, especially since it was an interstate project that would benefit Amtrak, New Jersey and New York and improve reliability on the nation's only "high speed" rail corridor - the NEC - by increasing the slots available to Amtrak and NJ Transit.

The Gateway project would not increase NJ Transit slots nearly as much as the ARC project would, but that too isn't nearly as bad as it appears considering that NJ Transit simply lacks the operational funds to run more trains as it claims from Northern New Jersey into Manhattan. It can barely afford to operate the number of trains it has at present.

The Portal Bridge replacement should go ahead regardless of what happens elsewhere with the high speed rail money, precisely because it has been in the works for years, and now that the financing is available, it should be carried out immediately to reduce the chances of further overruns and cost increases.

Deadline Day For Florida's High Speed Rail Project

Today's the deadline day to get Florida's high speed rail (HSR) project back on track. Backers of the project say that any cost overruns would be borne by the private sector, eliminating the key concern for GOP Gov. Rick Scott, who also claims that the money would be better used upgrading ports to handle larger ships once the Panama Canal upgrade is completed:

"We have addressed all of the governor's concerns," said Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio. "We have structured this so that if there were cost overruns the private sector would take care if it."

Iorio, along with the mayors of Orlando, Lakeland and Miami, signed an agreement that calls for local authorities to take over the project with the help of the private sector. They presented their plan to Scott Wednesday.

"If there are operational short falls -- private sector. This is a true public-private partnership," Iorio said. "This is what governors all across the country want and we had structured this in such a way that there would not be risk to the Florida taxpayers."

Scott's office did not respond to CNN's request for a comment on the agreement.

Scott has said that he believes there would be a greater long-term benefit to the state if the money were used for other infrastructure projects.

"I want the money for our ports," he said, noting the expansion project now underway at the Panama Canal and the growth of economies in Central and South America. "Put that money into the Florida ports. That's where we want that money spent."

But LaHood said the funds were specifically allocated for high-speed rail and can't be switched to other projects.

Proponents of high-speed rail believe Florida is the ideal location for an inter-city system. The Tampa to Orlando project would be the first leg in a line that advocates hope to extend to Miami and eventually Jacksonville in the north of the state.

If that's the case, then let this project go ahead and see if Florida can get HSR up and running. It would be a tremendous test case to see if the country can get anything approaching HSR.

Meanwhile, funding to get key improvements on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor (NEC) are still lagging - particularly the Portal Bridge project that should be separate from all the discussions about the Gateway Tunnel/ARC project.

The Portal Bridge is a project everyone agrees upon, yet no one in the NJ delegation seems to be able to secure funding - and that includes Sen. Frank Lautenberg whose name adorns the Secaucus Transfer for all of his support of mass transit. Time for him to put up and shut about about his ongoing feuds with Gov. Chris Christie and secure the funding for this project that has been on the drawing boards for years and which all the relevant parties - from Amtrak to NJ Transit to the state and federal authorities - recognize as critical to improving the on-time performance of the NEC and increasing speed on the corridor to reduce travel time between Washington DC and Boston.

UPDATE:
Benjamin Kabab at Second Avenue Sagas takes another crack at trying to figure out how to get a cross-Hudson River tunnel done. His takeaway:

The overarching issue with ARC, Gateway of the 7 line extension is one of local government and expenditures. Who stands to benefit most from the new tunnel — New York businesses who can bring more commuters and tourists into the city or New Jersey residents who will find their commutes quicker and less stressful? Should New Jersey pay for transportation improvements that only incidentally end up in New York or should New York add more to the pot for a tunnel that adds to its economic allure?

The answer to those question is, obviously enough, probably both. To realize a new cross-Hudson rail tunnel, New York will have to add more to the pot, and they likely should. In an age of stretched state budgets though, it’s tough to see where the money will come from, and we may be in for a long wait until the next tunnel breaks ground.

Actually, he leaves out the point that a cross-Hudson tunnel is an interstate venture and Amtrak improvements would vastly improve interstate travel along the NEC. Expanding slots for NJ Transit helps the daily commuters that not only commute into Manhattan for the day, but the reverse commuters who go elsewhere. A 7 line expansion would greatly improve regional transit capabilities since a New Jersey resident would have a 1-seat ride from Secaucus all the way to Flushing, and the related access to more subway lines. It's a project worthy of further study and should be up for federal funding just as surely as the other rail projects.

Christie was right to demand that New York get in the game and pony up more funds to make the tunnel work - the ARC project could have been salvaged had New York come up with the funding to cover overruns, which was a major concern that New Jersey taxpayers would be hit with billions in overruns.

Meanwhile, talk about increasing the New Jersey gas tax to fund mass transit keep ignoring that the state's taxpayers are the most heavily burdened in the nation based on their overall tax burden and that increasing the gas tax would be a further regressive hit on all taxpayers.

Yet, at some point, that gas tax will be raised to cover transportation projects that are absolutely needed and vital to New Jersey infrastructure - both mass transit and highways. There are too many projects that are needed, and which lack the needed funds to happen anytime soon.

UPDATE:
The Florida Supreme Court ruled that Gov. Scott has the authority to cancel the project. With this project all but killed, I can only hope that New Jersey and New York take advantage of the $2.4 billion to get the Portal Bridge project underway, and to get a head start on the Gateway/ARC tunnel project.

About The Administration's High Speed Rail Bet

This is far from the first time that a president has offered up promises of a high speed rail network. It's not the first time that President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden have promoted a high speed rail infrastructure package since they took office.

Their latest proposal to spend $53 billion over six years is another symptom of the dysfunctional nature of passenger rail in the US.

The problem is that the money isn't being focused on where it would do the most good or where high speed rail is viable. It's going to where it would garner sufficient support to secure passage.

The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is the starting and end point for high speed rail in the US. It's the only rail in the country that approaches anything resembling high speed rail, and even then, it's sorely limited by decrepit infrastructure and bottlenecks at key locations. Moreover, it wouldn't even pass for high speed rail in other parts of the world, including Japan, Europe, or China.

To bring the NEC up to European or Japanese standards, it would take a massive infusion of funding well beyond the $53 billion proposed for the entire national rail infrastructure.

Why?

Because Amtrak shares rail with commuter trains and freight lines that require much slower service. To build a true high speed rail network, it would require acquiring and building new dedicated high speed rail lines, which are prohibitively expensive in the densely populated NEC.

That's why proposals for high speed rail connecting Las Vegas with coastal California or a central California high speed rail project or Carolina or Florida projects are getting funding - they're cheaper to acquire the necessary rights of way, but they lack the population density to make those projects truly viable.

Yet, the critical infrastructure bottlenecks along the NEC wont get sufficient funding for their replacement. The proposals essentially ignore the NEC needs, even though it's the only Amtrak route that consistently has passenger support and shows signs of being self-supporting.

The Portal Bridge project is as shovel-ready as it gets, and yet it's limping along on the funding trail, and its fate has been linked to the ARC/Gateway tunnel project, even though building a replacement span would allow a 50% increase in speed through the Meadowlands, from 60mph to 90mph, all while improving reliability and eliminating a bottleneck that causes incessant rail congestion, delays, and reliability concerns. That project, by itself is expected to cost nearly $2 billion.

The ARC/Gateway tunnel project would run another $13.5 billion (if not more).

There are similar problems with congestion on the NEC around Baltimore, and additional line issues in Connecticut and outside Boston. Eliminating those bottlenecks and improving infrastructure could significantly cut travel time and make passenger rail an attractive alternative to commuter flights that already clog congested airports that are struggling at or above their rated capacities.

The work on the NEC would solve several problems at once. It would reduce road congestion along the I95 corridor and it would reduce airport congestion that leads to nationwide delays because NYC area airports are struggling at the maximum capacity, often with commuter flights along the NEC.

So, why has the Administration forsaken the NEC? Moreover, it isn't the first time that the Administration has talked about high speed rail and then refused to find the money to make it happen. The Administration refused to come forward with guarantees that the federal government would cover cost overruns on the ARC tunnel, which would allow for increased Amtrak capacity on the NEC. Those cost overruns led to Gov. Christie to kill the $8.7 billion ARC tunnel and then New Jersey Senators Lautenberg and Menendez came out this week with a proposal to spend $13.5 billion to build an Amtrak-led rail tunnel project to Penn Station (that apparently includes the Portal Bridge funding). The federal government continues to send mixed signals, and the Congressional delegations from the NEC need to step forward to demand that the funds go to these critical projects. Their failure to secure funding means that the NEC will limp along - and with it - the nation's best hopes for a truly viable high speed rail network.

Digesting the Politics of the ARC Tunnel Successor's

After Gov. Chris Christie killed the ARC tunnel project that would have put New Jersey taxpayers on the hook for anywhere from $1 to $5 billion in cost overruns and built a tunnel project that wouldn't accomplish anything near as much as its boosters claimed, Democrats Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez are hoping to build a tunnel project that would accomplish most everything that the ARC tunnel proponents hoped to achieve, but it will cost.

It's going to cost a minimum of $10 billion and most sources indicate that the cost will be at least $13.5 billion. That's due in part to the alignment of the tunnel to bring trains into a newly expanded cavern adjacent to Penn Station. The tunnel would have access to Penn Station and lead to high speed rail capabilities through New York City. The price tag also apparently includes the $1.8-$1.9 billion Portal Bridge project, which shouldn't have been included in the overall price tag and should have been budgeted separately since that replacement bridge needs to go ahead regardless of what decision is made on the tunnel projects.

Lautenberg and Menendez are pushing an Amtrak solution because it would attempt to cut Christie out of the decision-making process, even though Christie was absolutely right to demand that the federal government and New York pick up additional costs on this interstate project.

NJ Transit and the Port Authority will again be asked to kick in financing to bring the project to fruition, and Gov. Christie can still affect the outcome through his control over those agencies.

Still, no one is asking why this project, which is similar to one of the alternatives under the ARC tunnel design studies is costing so much more than those earliest projections. Lautenberg and Menendez have effective replaced a costly boondoggle with an even more expensive project and still haven't managed to get New York's congressional delegation on board to support jointly requesting and financing the project. That's a huge failure on their part since New York will garner a tremendous benefit while New Jersey continues picking up the costs from the project.

A new tunnel is absolutely essential to the long term growth in the region and rebuilding critical infrastructure. However, the atrocious state budgets on both sides of the Hudson River means that neither New Jersey nor New York can truly afford to put up the funds - either alone or together without significant federal aid. That means getting Congress and the President on board with this project.

You can bet that fiscal hawks in Congress will swarm over the fact that this new iteration of the tunnel plan is even more costly than the canceled ARC tunnel, and they're going to focus on the price tag, rather than the differences in the project that would bring significantly more benefits to mass transit and intercity transportation. Add to the fact that Republicans in Congress dislike Amtrak, and the odds that this project gets off the ground are slim even with the President's backing.

UPDATE:
The Star Ledger gives a cautious thumb's up for the Gateway tunnel proposal, but not without first lambasting Christie for killing the ARC tunnel and using monies that were originally devoted to the ARC tunnel to plug the Transportation Trust Fund shortfall.

I'm not surprised by that reading, but the paper ignores that the New Jersey Senators failed to find the funding to make the ARC tunnel work when Christie noted that NJ taxpayers would be on the hook for all the overruns.

The paper claims that the new proposal will result in fewer trains heading into Manhattan than the ARC tunnel, but that's not entirely accurate either. It would result in more Amtrak high speed trains going into Manhattan along with a smaller contingent of NJ Transit trains than the ARC tunnel provided. The capacity is actually likely to be higher than the ARC tunnel and will link to Sunnyside Yards for storage.

Another consideration is that the Amtrak head, Anthony Coscia, is the former head of the Port Authority, so he knows the political machinations at work in both states.

The paramount question, however, is how and when Amtrak and its partners can obtain the necessary funding to make the project a reality. The reports already indicate that the Gateway tunnel can use the ARC tunnel entrance in New Jersey, so there's more than enough evidence that New Jersey wont have to repay the $271 million for canceling the ARC tunnel, when the engineering and construction work undertaken will be utilized in the new project.

Another question is why everyone continues conflating the Portal Bridge project with the tunnel proposals. They can, and should be, independent projects and while both need to be undertaken, the Portal Bridge project doesn't have the rancorous funding problems that the tunnel has.

A Not Quite Rightous Rant on the ARC Tunnel Nonsense

Brian Donohue at the Star Ledger has a story on their site about the craziness surrounding the ARC Tunnel and the bickering among the politicians and Gov. Christie's demand that the state not be held accountable for cost overruns. He even has a video with a not quite righteous rant about the project.

The ARC tunnel saga: a sad state of affairs

In that video, he mentions that the wars in Iraq cost $1.1 trillion dollars and that we could have built quite a bit with that money (except that no one knows what money would have been spent considering that in the years prior to 2001 the government never spent more than a few billion dollars on infrastructure in New Jersey as a part of the federal transportation bills such as TEA-21).

Donohue mentions that if New Jersey repeals the law requiring self-service gas, prices at the pumps could drop a few cents and the state could raise the tax a few pennies to keep prices at the current levels. That's just trimming away at the margins, because the state's fiscal problems are much deeper than just trying to salvage the Transportation Trust Fund that spends a significant percentage on debt payment - far more than it can bear.

No, what gets glossed over is the fact that the Swiss recently reached a major milestone in completing the Gotthard base tunnel - a 2 tunnel system with miles of additional connecting passageways and emergency stations carved out of solid rock, which stretches 35 miles and cost $10 billion. The ARC tunnel is just over 1 mile in length including approaches and we're talking about $10 billion. What justifies that kind of cost?

No one wants to discuss that particular aspect, nor does anyone want to pay serious attention to the fact that the French have been able to lay high speed rail by the mile at a fraction of the cost of projects here in the US. That includes the proposed Las Vegas to California route through vast expanses of open desert.

Major infrastructure in the Northeast in particular was built more than a century ago, and it's showing its age and wear and tear. That means that the operating costs for those projects are higher because of higher maintenance. The Brooklyn Bridge is undergoing just the latest in a series of rehabilitation that will make it capable of carrying traffic for the next two decades, but costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

The existing pair of Hudson River tunnels was built a century ago, and besides the PATH tubes, are the only rail links into Manhattan from New Jersey. That has to change, but the ARC tunnel isn't the way to get it done.

As I noted yesterday, misplaced priorities plays a big role in NJ Transit being in a fiscal bind it faces. It has cut service and has shown itself incapable of maintaining the system at its current level, yet it is clamoring for a new rail station and tunnel system that it wants the state to cover on cost overruns but which it can't afford. Instead of linking the tunnels back into Penn Station, NJ Transit wants a separate terminus in Manhattan that does nothing to alleviate congestion or problems if a disabled train blocks one of the tracks to Penn Station.

Then, there's the issue with the Portal Bridge (a movable span on the Hackensack River), which is yet another bottleneck that Donohue doesn't mention. That bit of infrastructure is also 100 years old and is the site of repeated delays. Replacing that bridge is just as important, and even that project is expected to run $1 billion or more. Building that fixed span replacement would eliminate many of the delays that customers regularly face on the Northeast Corridor, and yet the state and federal government couldn't find the money in the stimulus package to get work underway last year. That is on the New Jersey congressional delegation that includes Sen. Frank Lautenberg who is on the transportation committee and whose name graces the Secaucus Transfer.

A replacement for a critical piece of infrastructure doesn't get nearly the press of a new tunnel system, but the outcomes are the same if they don't get built - delays and reliance on obsolete infrastructure that increases travel times along one of the most heavily traveled stretches of rail in the nation.

When Transportation Priorities Are Backwards

Groundbreaking ceremonies were held to celebrate the first phase of building the Moynihan rail station to replace the decrepit New York Penn Station that is built underneath Madison Square Garden.



It's named for the former US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who championed the project to build a grand entrance for passengers to the Amtrak, LIRR and NJ Transit commuters who use the station and to hearken back to the grandeur of the station that was demolished to make way for the Garden.

The first phase is expect to cost $267 million of the approximately $1.5 billion project, which will shift Amtrak's platforms West underneath the Farley Post Office Building and constructing new entrances to the station. The additional phases will include building hotels and restaurants in sections of the Post Office Building that are no longer used by the post office.

A grand entrance to Amtrak is a worthy endeavor, but does it actually improve service and reliability? This station does not expand capacity. It does not improve reliability. It is getting done because the financing for this long overdue project finally came through.

However, it came through at a time when $1 billion could finance the construction of the new Portal Bridge. That bottleneck is the site of repeated problems causing delays on the entire Northeast Corridor and affects not only Amtrak but New Jersey Transit commuters. Just this morning, a disabled train in the vicinity of the Portal Bridge caused 30-45 minute delays because the train blocked one of the two tracks through the area. Indeed, long after rush hour is over, residual delays are causing ongoing delays of 10-15 minutes on the affected lines.

A replacement Portal Bridge, which would cost over $1 billion but would increase the number of tracks to five on two separate fixed spans over the Hackensack River (one bridge would have three tracks for northbound traffic, the other two tracks would be for southbound traffic). The increased reliability and reduced delays that would result from that project are more than worth it since improved reliability and on-time performance would encourage people to commute by rail rather than dealing with auto traffic into the City.

NJ Transit and Amtrak have both consistently gotten their priorities backwards. Penn Station isn't a priority, nor is the ARC Tunnel's destination terminus at Herald Square - building out a rail system that is robust and can handle existing levels of traffic is necessary and prudent since on-time performance is a big selling point for Northeast Corridor traffic in hopes of luring passengers off air shuttle flights. The Portal Bridge would also enable trains to travel through the area at much higher speeds, reducing travel times considerably.

Moreover, the Portal Bridge project is as close to being a shovel-ready project as any around the country and yet finding funds for this vital piece of transportation infrastructure was hard to come by. How is it that both New Jersey senators Menendez and Lautenberg are busy complaining about Gov. Christie's prudent actions to protect New Jersey from cost overruns on the ARC Tunnel but silent about getting funding for the equally necessary and vital Portal Bridge project, which would have as great an impact on commuters?