All Aboard The Train

We passenger rail advocates had a very good day yesterday. I don't know if we'll have many good days ahead, but yesterday was a very good day because of the announcement of two major rail projects involving the Northeast.

First, an alternative idea has been announced in the effort to build a new rail tunnel between New York City and New Jersey. Amtrak is planning to build a $13.5 billion tunnel that will connect New Jersey to Penn Station in Manhattan and will mostly follow the route of the tunnel canceled by New Jersey governor Chris Christie, but it will involve more of a federal role and will spare New Jersey taxpayers any cost overruns. And, it will connect Amtrak and NJ Transit's trains with other lines rather than end a block or two away under Macy's. This is actually not a new idea, as it is a revised version of a 1999 proposal to build two tunnels from New Jersey, one connecting with Grand Central Terminal and the other connecting to Penn Station. The Grand Central proposal was abandoned in 2003 due to infighting between NJ Transit and its commuter rail counterparts serving New York and Connecticut over sharing Grand Central access.

The tunnel that will now be built was originally scuttled in favor of the Access to the Region's Core (ARC) tunnel killed by Governor Christie. As Paul Mulshine reported in the Newark Star-Ledger, the ARC plan "pleased no one except the NJ Transit executives and the contractors who would have gotten the work." Connectivity was a major complaint among the ARC tunnel's critics, because it led to a separate station near Macy's and was derided as the "tunnel to Macy's basement." Christie probably looks like a hero now, having canceled the ARC tunnel and forced the pursuit of a more cost-effective alternative. He's in favor of the Amtrak plan.

Speaking of Amtrak, here's the other big story. Vice President Joe Biden went to Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia to announce that the Obama administration will press for a re-authorization of the federal Surface Transportation Program with an expanded mission that includes high-speed intercity rail, committing the government to a $53 billion, six-year plan to get such a system started. It looks like this country is finally prepared to commit itself to modernizing passenger rail before the end of this decade, not unlike the commitment to the moon landing project of the 1960s. But Republicans in Congress are still wary of more government spending, and some anti-rail politicians are convinced that our primary transportation focus must be on highways. Commitment from the executive branch to a national goal doesn't guarantee success. If you disagree, I have a national health insurance card from the Clinton years I'd like to show you.

I want to believe this is for real this time. Biden seems to. But online readers of newspapers like the Camden (N.J.) Courier-Post, which was the primary source for this blog entry, not only don't believe it, they don't want it. The arguments are the same - it will bankrupt the country, it will lead to higher taxes, it's an expensive toy - and they don't take into account the massive government subsidies given to aviation and highways. I hope this project gets under way soon. Because the Northeast Corridor Acela train, while sleek and comfortable, averages 60 to 80 mph between Boston and Washington despite its 150-mph top speed . . . and trains in other countries go faster than that.

It was a new day yesterday for American passenger rail advocates, but it may be an old day soon if not much happens.

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.