Derailed

New Jersey governor Chris Christie has demonstrated his knack for understanding the price of everything and the value of nothing. This past Thursday, after $600 million had been spent to begin a new passenger rail tunnel under the Hudson River to relieve congestion in the existing 100-year-old train tunnel to Manhattan, Christie announced he was cancelling the project because cost overruns had made the price tag on the project - which he supported during the 2009 gubernatorial campaign - from less than $9 billion to about $14 billion. Christie explained that New Jersey can't spend money it does not have.

Except that the rail tunnel would create six thousand construction jobs and 45,000 permanent jobs once completed by the 2018 target date. It would also get 22,000 cars off New Jersey highways and relieve congestion in the Lincoln Tunnel between New Jersey and New York City. Christie also was ready to throw away $3 billion in federal money for the project, which cannot be allocated to other projects. Democrats in the New Jersey legislature and the state's two Democratic U.S. Senators, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, tried unsucessfully to get Christie to reconsider. Appropriately enough, it took a Republican - Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation - to get Christie to grant the project a two-week reprieve in an attempt to revive it. Some of have expressed speculation that Christie is trying to use the threat of stopping the project as a bargaining chip to renegotiate the costs.

The tunnel plan was not perfect. It does not connect commuters directly with the new Moynihan Station being built out of the old Pennsylvania Station in New York, and a planned connection to Grand Central Terminal was scuttled. But the benefits of the connection far outweighed the flaws, and Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, has suggested the reprieve be used to correct the plan's weaknesses.

Despite the need for new transportation infrastructure in this country, Christie's bid to cancel this rail tunnel project is likely to enhance his standing in the national Republican party as a disciplinary cost-cutter. Republicans in other parts of the country, after all, don't have to worry about commuting to New York by train. But it could also help Christie in New Jersey. First, he wouldn't have to raise any transportation taxes - least of all the gasoline tax - to pay for it. Second, most New Jerseyans wouldn't be affected by the cancellation of the project. Most New Jerseyans commute by car to suburban office parks in places like Paramus, Parsippany, Piscataway, and other godawful sprawlscapes whose names begin with the letter P. Thirdly, many New Jerseyans were unaware of the rail tunnel anyway.

Christie does not have New Jersey's interests at heart. All he cares about is saving money for himself and his rich cronies. And to think his petty, miserly agenda - which he has pushed through like the arrogant bully he is - is winning plaudits nationwide.