19 Organizations Ask Transit Administrator to “Fix” Hudson River Tunnel Project

For Immediate Release (#09-11)

September 29, 2009

Contact: Sean Jeans-Gail, 202-408-8362

Washington, DC, September 29, 2009— Despite the potential for great economic benefits, New Jersey Transit’s current plans for new, dead-end tunnels under the Hudson River into a deep-cavern station under 34th Street in Manhattan would constitute “one of the greatest wastes of taxpayer money in history.” Thus wrote the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) and 18 other advocacy organizations, in a letter to Federal Transit Administrator Peter M. Rogoff.  The 19 organizations ask U.S. DOT to intervene and force appropriate changes to New Jersey Transit’s Mass Transit Tunnel project (formerly Trans-Hudson Express and Access to the Region’s Core). The list of groups endorsing the letter include Sierra Club New Jersey and Connecticut Chapters, the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the [New York] MTA and the Midwest High Speed Rail Association.

The organizations ask the federal government to intervene to stop the project as planned and mandate inclusion of a direct track connection to the existing Penn Station, to promote greater connectivity throughout the region, as well as to provide back-up redundancy in case of failure or other disruptions in the two, century-old tunnels linking Penn Station with New Jersey.  As currently designed, the project is a gamble that those elderly tunnels will last another century—tunnels on which Amtrak and half of NJT’s trains will continue to depend.  Absent the connection, a calamitous long-term blockage would paralyze operations, eliminating the ability to run Amtrak or commuter trains between New England and New Jersey.

“[T]he NJT plan is irresponsible at its core,” the Association writes, “and offers a case study as to why deference to the ‘locally preferred alternative’ does not serve the public interest.”

To correct this folly, the organizations recommend:

• establishing “through running” of regional trains to quickly increase Penn Station’s capacity,
• restoring the new tunnels’ connection to Penn Station,
• eliminating the deep cavern station under 34th Street, which would save $3 billion. Some of those savings could be invested in additional tracks and platforms at Penn Station; and
• having USDOT lead an effort to resume planning a long-sought connection between Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, which could be finalized in as little as two years, turning a shortsighted foible into a “much more useful, game-changing regional rail plan.”