'I've said all along that I think we need a second tunnel under the Hudson River,' the governor said Watch video
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TRENTON — Amtrak’s top executive and New Jersey’s two U.S. senators Monday unveiled an alternative plan for a New Jersey-Manhattan commuter train tunnel to replace the ARC tunnel Gov. Chris Christie terminated three months ago.
And this time the boisterous Jersey governor liked it, giving the proposed $13.5 billion project a critical boost.
Christie said he is "thrilled" with the new Gateway tunnel proposal, pointing out that it addresses his concerns: the planned tunnel won’t end deep below Macy’s, New Jersey taxpayers won’t be on the hook for cost overruns and the federal government will take the lead.
"I’ve said all along that I think we need a second tunnel under the Hudson River," the governor said.
A $50 million engineering study funded by the federal government will take about three to four years to complete, putting off a decision by New Jersey on how much money the state could commit to the regional project.
Less Jersey-centric, but more flexible and all-encompassing, the Gateway tunnel would connect to new tracks in an expanded New York Penn Station instead of dead-ending deep under West 34th Street.
One of the biggest gripes about the canceled 9-mile Access to the Region’s Core tunnel from Secaucus to New York City was its lack of connectivity to other transit hubs in Manhattan.
Otherwise, the new tunnel would follow much of the same footprint as ARC.
Amtrak officials hope to have the tunnel completed in a decade.
The plans for a new tunnel were first reported Sunday night on nj.com.
The 13 additional NJ Transit trains per hour the Gateway tunnel could handle would be less than the 25 extra NJ Transit trains per hour that the ARC tunnel would have allowed. The Gateway tunnel also would accommodate eight more Amtrak trains per hour.
In addition to adding the new tunnel under the Hudson, the project would expand the capacity of New York Penn Station and replace the decrepit, century-old Portal Bridge between Kearny and Secaucus over the Hackensack River.
"As President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, in America we do big things. And I believe that the Gateway project is a big thing that could produce great results," U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said during a news conference in the Hilton next to the Newark Penn Station rail hub.
He was joined by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who immediately began working with Amtrak to revive the trans-Hudson rail tunnel after Christie killed it on Oct. 27, and Amtrak president and CEO Joseph Boardman and Amtrak board member Anthony Coscia.
Boardman said that when the present Hudson River train tunnels were opened in 1911, there were 6 million people in the metropolitan area.
"Now we have over 18 million people, but we have the same two tunnels," he said, adding that during peak hours, trains pass through every 150 seconds.
While the funding for the smaller-scale $9.8 billion ARC project relied on contributions of roughly one-third each from New Jersey, the federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Gateway is being touted as a Northeast regional project in which other states and private investors would likely contribute.
Lautenberg said the project was an investment in the region’s aging infrastructure and would make it easier for New Jersey residents to take one-seat train rides to prosperous jobs in Manhattan.
He said the project would also link to high-speed rail in the northeastern U.S. corridor, and he touted the construction jobs it would create and the property values it would increase along the rail line.
"It’s time to think bigger than we have and act smarter than we have," Lautenberg said. "The bottom line is that we can’t afford to wait several more decades. We have to act faster. We have to act now."
Rail advocate David Peter Alan of the Lackawanna Coalition, who was critical of the ARC design, called the Gateway plan "a big step in the right direction."
NJ Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel, who coined the phrase "tunnel to Macy’s basement" to describe ARC, called the Gateway proposal "the right tunnel in the right place."
Staff writer Ginger Gibson contributed to this report.