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Flag Stops: Making No Small Plans
Friday, February 26, 2010
Reasons to be hopeful, to be concerned, and to take action.
—Malcolm Kenton
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: amtrak, budget, congress, gulf coast, investment, jobs bill, legislation, new orleans, new york city, passenger trains, rail planning, ray lahood, ridership, senate, sunset limited, take action, transportation, west virginia,NJT Halts Work on Flawed Tunnel Project
Monday, September 13, 2010
In what today’s New York Times reported as “a highly unusual move, officials at New Jersey Transit…said over the weekend that they had placed a 30-day moratorium on all new work and contract bids until they could determine if the project’s cost would be covered by its budget.”
The Newark Star-Ledger reported that “federal officials say the project may go as much as a billion dollars over budget—money New Jersey doesn’t have. The month-long suspension of all new activity—imposed by NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein in the wake of concerns by the Federal Transit Administration—will be used to re-examine the budget numbers…Weinstein remains convinced the tunnel project will survive, although there are other dynamics in play. Money for transportation projects is already in short supply and the nearly broke [New Jersey] Transportation Trust Fund — which pays for highway and rail programs — is now on life support and there is little appetite to raise tolls or a gas tax to replenish the capital improvement fund.”
While their public comments make no reference to changing the design of the project—an $8.7 billion plan that would not link new Hudson River rail tunnels to New York’s Pennsylvania Station—NARP members and others who have been pressing to fix the design have also noted the project’s finance problems. In a jointly-signed August 24 letter to New Jersey Transportation Commissioner James Simpson, NARP President Ross Capon and University of Pennsylvania Emeritus Professor of Transportation Vukan Vuchic addressed cost-saving opportunities. The letter began with the following four points:
- A link between the new tunnels and Pennsylvania Station (NYP) is essential and is compatible with both items (2) and (3).
- Eliminating the 34th Street Terminal offers both transportation and cost-saving benefits (with comparable combined capacity at an expanded Penn Station or by proceeding directly to Grand Central).
- Deferring construction of the 34th Street Terminal combined with increasing capacity at NYP can also be considered, particularly because NJT does not expect to fully utilize total Hudson River tunnel capacity in the initial years after the new tunnels open.
- Alternatively, taking NJT’s original plan for a 34th Street terminal and restoring the New York Pennsylvania Station link to it can be done with a 2.5% gradient, which is steeper than NJT’s preferred 2.1% and yet less than an existing NJT 2.7% grade at Rahway. To our knowledge, the gradient question has not been discussed, or at least not adequately. Adhering to ideal engineering standards is, as always, desirable, but in this case its cost of such adherence is unacceptably high.
Part of the reason that this flawed project has advanced so far is that so many people are unaware of its fatal flaw, finding it hard to believe that officials would propose to spend so much money on Hudson River rail tunnels that do not connect to Penn Station. The more that Secretary LaHood, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff and New Jersey officials hear about public concern over the problem, the more likely it is that design flaws will be addressed.
Letters to the editor which name responsible public officials are a good way to get your views heard.
- -Ross Capon
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: 34th street, access to the region's core, amtrak, deep cavern, design flaws, hudson river tunnels, new jersey transit, new york city, penn station,Overdue Bridge Replacement is Collateral Damage from Tunnel Cancellation
Monday, November 29, 2010
Collateral damage resulting from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s final cancellation of the ARC trans-Hudson River rail project on October 27 includes the still undecided fate of the Hackensack River crossing between Newark and New York City—the Portal Bridge Capacity Enhancement Project (PBCEP).
The existing century-old Portal Bridge—part of the busiest intercity passenger rail line in the country—has deteriorated to the point where replacement is necessary to avoid a potential disaster. New twin spans were designed to address not only the replacement of the original two-track structure on the Washington-New York-Boston Northeast Corridor (NEC) in New Jersey’s Kearny meadowlands, but also to provide additional track capacity for the new two-track Hudson rail tunnel which was to lead into the six track (three track over three track) “deep cavern” New Jersey Transit-only terminal some two hundred feet below Manhattan’s 34th Street.
The north span consisted of three tracks and was to be used principally for Amtrak intercity and NJT NEC trains that would continue to use the current New York Penn Station. The south span, which was configured for two tracks, was mainly for tracks leading to the 34th Street terminal; it was for NJT non-NEC services and was designed to allow the 26 dual-mode locomotives, now on order, to be used on those NJT lines beyond where catenary stopped.
Portal became an issue of hot contention during the time the project’s fate was uncertain. The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) clearly stated that for the ARC tunnels to handle 25 trains per hour, Portal would have to be completed before, or contemporaneously with, the Hudson rail tunnels. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and other federal officials considered ARC and Portal two separate entities; New Jersey did not because the state would have to find matching funding sources. The numbers LaHood gave the Governor for ARC in their Friday, October 8 meeting were $9.8 billion (assuming a 10% probability that the cost would not be exceeded), $10.9 billion (a 40% - 50% probability) and $12.7 billion (an 83% probability). While the press picked up on the low probability number, the Governor was looking at his state’s worst exposure; good business practices would dictate at least the adoption of a mid-range figure.
Posted by Albert L Papp Jr.
Tags: amtrak, arc tunnel, chris christie, hackensack river, new jersey, new york city, northeast corridor, portal bridge,House Transportation Committee Visits New York City
Friday, January 28, 2011
Yesterday I participated in a roundtable discussion of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee (T&I) about Northeast Corridor high speed rail in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York State (MTA) boardroom. This followed a morning formal hearing on the northeast balcony of adjacent Grand Central Terminal. That in turn followed a Wednesday afternoon train ride on Acela Express from Washington during a blizzard. Amtrak officials briefed committee members during the trip.
For the roundtable, other participants included Amtrak President Joseph Boardman and Vice President Al Engel, Anne Stubbs of the Coalition of Northeast Governors, Petra Todorovich of America 2050 and representing the Business Alliance for Northeast Mobility, Andy Kunz of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, four private finance practitioners and several members of the T&I Committee led by Chairman John Mica (R-FL). Partial list of participating committee members is at the bottom of this entry.
Mica is a strong supporter of developing true high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor (NEC), and involving private investors in the effort. There was much discussion about Amtrak’s $117 billion NEC Vision (new double-track, true high-speed Boston-Washington railroad), the multi-agency $52 billion NEC Infrastructure Master Plan, and the relationship between them. There is an $8.3 billion overlap between the Vision and the Plan, so the cost of doing both is around $161 billion instead of $169 billion. The Master Plan brings the NEC to a state of good repair “and provide[s] sufficient capacity to meet estimated ridership demand through 2030.” Boardman said doing the Vision, besides significantly improving travel times, would “give us capacity far into the future.”
For Mica, the Vision’s 2040 target completion date is far too distant. He said, “We’ll figure out a way to speed this up.” In the present budgetary environment, he emphasized that the federal government will not put up anywhere near $117 billion. The financial expert on hand with high speed rail experience was Kent Rowey, partner with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP. He said that public funding of the Taiwan’s bullet train project was 95% while private participation was 5%, which the state either has repaid or will repay. This led Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to observe, “It’s clear that there’s no free lunch; getting high speed rail is going to require a huge federal investment.”
Mica then deftly turned the meeting over to the host, MTA Chairman Jay H. Walder, for an eloquent presentation on how transportation makes Manhattan possible, with special emphasis on Second Avenue Subway and the East Side Access project (bringing Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central). Committee members and staff got a tour of the latter at the rise of the meeting.
The participating committee members included full committee ranking member Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), Reps. Bill Shuster (R-PA) and Corrine Brown (D-FL), chair and ranking member of the Railroads subcommittee; Larry Bucshon (R-IN); Chip Cravaack (R-MN); Jeff Denham (R-CA); Bob Gibbs (R-OH); Pat Meehan (R-PA); Nadler; and Tom Reed (R-NY).
—Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags: congress, grand central terminal, high-speed rail, house transportation & infrastructure committee, jerrold nadler, john mica, new york city, northeast corridor, passenger trains,©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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