New Jersey’s Republican governor is reportedly considering pulling the plug on a long-planned $8.7 billion transit tunnel, despite 20 years of planning and $6 billion in federal and state funding commitments, according to a New York Times story yesterday.
The tunnel, which was scheduled to be completed in 2017, was designed to double the capacity for passengers traveling between Manhattan and New Jersey. Its planners have said that it would create 6,000 construction jobs, reduce congestion and pollution and spur $660 million in annual economic activity in the metropolitan area. Without it, they said, the region must rely on a century-old, two-track tunnel from New Jersey to Pennsylvania Station in New York that is already nearing capacity.
A Bloomberg news update says the cancelation will be announced at a press conference this afternoon.
The latest move follows a temporary moratorium on state spending for the project imposed last month.
You have to wonder whether Gov. Lingle, who is open about her national Republican aspirations, may find political benefit in following suit.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I thought it was already understood that Lingle would be leaving the signing off on the EIS to the next governor.
Politically that may be more palatable then coming out and saying it should be killed.
Amazing how the dynamics of the NJ discussion resemble Hawaii’s non-stop dialogue over rail. “Can we afford it?” … “this is our last chance” … etc.
Some argue that Mufi’s loss was a referendum on rail. But top two vote earners Carlisle and Caldwell were strong supporters of rail.
Now if he can put that money into the NJ library system.
The NJ tunnel is now cancelled, according to the Bloomberg link in your article. There’s discussion of why.
To the extent Lingle’s actions will be guided by her obvious political ambitions, I think she is right where she wants to be. Her position is ambiguous enough that she can spin it either way in future debates and has succeeded in not alienating most of the voters by aligning herself unalterably with either the hardline rail opponents or supporters.
A pretty safe place to be.
But why should we have to hope for Lingle to save us, in the final hours of her administration, from what has come to be seen by MOST voters as a poorly conceived and overpriced project? What is it about our “democracy” that doesn’t provide us a means to get clear statements on Rail from the two men who are seeking to replace Lingle?
Like Ian, I support Neil. But I am not confident that he is independent enough from the pressures to proceed with the Boondoggle Railroad. He has staked out a position which might allow him to modify, postpone or even reject the Rail project. Or to “send it back to the drawing board,” my preferred option.
But once elected, and responsible in the eyes of the people for improving the economy, can he resist the temptation to provide good-paying, union jobs for local workers. Such considerations are not simply. cynical, Real Politick pay-offs to Democratic “special interests.” Any intelligent, honest assessment of our current economic dilemma has to be tempted by the undeniable “stimulus” effect of Rail as a “JOBS project.”
A POSSIBLE way out would be to apply the funds to other long deferred construction/maintenance projects on Oahu. These funds were taken from Oahu residents through a GET hike and there will be significant resentment if they were to be spent state-wide. (Well, maybe SOME could go to other projects more broadly in order to get a “buy-in” from neighbor isle legislators.)
Our schools have been neglected, roads, sewage systems, etc. We have a serious homeless problem sue, in part, to the end of county and state involvement in low-cost housing.
Any or all of these projects could provide BOTH good jobs and meet real needs. How to re-route the money legally–and politically–I will leave to smarter folks than me.
But I HOPE we don’t have to pin our hopes on a final action by Lingle.
If the new governor cancels this project, then O`ahu will be set back decades if not forever.
This transit project is critical to this island’s survival as a decent place to live, work & play.
There is no way that the feds will keep their money on a “let’s start over from scratch” project.
I do NOT understand why nor will I EVER agree that we should continue to be dependent upon fossil fuel-driven (usually) single occupancy vehicles.
Currently, there almost as many cars/trucks in Hawai`i as there are people of all ages. Does the baby next door drive the SUV or the F150 or the four-door Nissan sedan? She must because there are only two people who look old enough to drive living with her. Three vehicles for two people who can drive?
In fact, if I look at seven houses up and down the street from us in each direction, we are the only household that has just one vehicle. Of the 15 houses, there are more than 60 vehicles parked in the yards, carports and on the street, including five work-related trucks because the business owner is too cheap to rent an industrial location.
Think it’s bad now? Wait until January 1, 2023, when the city’s own planners expect O`ahu’s residential population to cross over the 1.4 MILLION mark.
That’s a 50% increase in population in just over 12 years.
A mass transit system is not the only answer to this quickly-coming-up future. But if we don’t have it, then what about transit-oriented development and other components of Smart Growth planning.
Is this the best system? Of course not, but it’s better than no system at all which is what that little baby next door is going to have to live with when her own grandchildren are trying to get around 50 years from now.
@CWD – I don’t like the current rail plan because its design appears to be driven mostly by development opportunities, particularly private sector development around the stations. Of course, there’s also the whole madness of spending this much money and NOT including UH & Waikiki right off the bat. Stupid.
I think that a better (re)design for rail could work but there would also need to be (dis)incentives for people to use it: congestion pricing on city streets & the freeway for vehicle drivers; restricting the number of vehicles registered per residential address to two or three; raising vehicle registration fees; better support for the The Bus including improved routing & service as well as integration with the rail.
Wow, CWD, you expect the Rail system to get your neighbor to get rid of his commercial vehicles? Sorry, but I have sometimes had to rely upon TheBus while carrying tools and it doesn’t work that well.
You lament our dependence on “fossil fuel-driven” single occupancy vehicles. OK, let’s figure how to solve that problem. Unfortunately, I have seen what looks like credible data that fossil fuel consumption per passenger mile will not go done with the Train.
Maybe after we implement massive adoption of alternative energy sources for electricity? Even then, why would the Train use that energy more efficiently than electric cars or hybrids?
Jeremy Harris had his faults, but one thing that I found endearing was his determination to go out into the community and experience for himself the problems facing Honolulu residents. He did this quite famously with TheBus and learned people needed more shelters from the rain and sun, so he had them built. He learned how to adjust the schedules to make it more convenient for users. He had schedules posted at stops.
Mufi never demonstrated any such interest in the real life transit problems facing Honolulu residents. He viewed the Bus as a drain on the budget and hiked the fares, while cutting service. Somehow, TheTrain wass never subject to the same “fiscal conservative” considerations, but was viewed as a milk cow for campaign contributions.
I will go along with Larry Geller on this. How can you trust a City (or State) government with a horrible record for maintenance of public facilities to keep the Train running and the “floating battleship” transit stations clean? You must be on mushrooms to believe the grandchildren of the baby next door will be getting around on any train system built today.
I am willing to be part of a broader discussion on mass transit options for Oahu, as well as “Smart Growth” and “transit-oriented development.” But I have to believe the organizers of the event are sincerely interested in the discussion and not simply “going through the motions” while railroading us towards a predetermined outcome like Mufi’s administration did.
Can Carlisle lead such a discussion? I dunno. Could Neil or Aiona? Again, I dunno. There is not much trust remaining in the civic arena. And too many of the opponents of Rail overlap with the Tea Party movement, which believes Town Hall Meetings are occasions to shout down those you disagree with. Perhaps they chances for a meaningful civic discussion, always a historic rarity, have disappeared from American society.
Well, for once, this is a topic I actually know something about. The big issue here is that the proposed tunnel was for the exclusive use of NJ Transit and would have dead-ended in mid-town Manhattan instead of connecting with Penn Station and allowing an alternate access for trains passing through NYC for other destinations. It was a bad plan to begin with and should have been deep-sixed for that reason alone.
Actually its entirely the opposite of what you said, and connects to Penn Station. http://www.arctunnel.com/map/
As it stands now only a single pair of century old tunnels carry NJ Transit trains into Penn Station. NJ Transit ridership has more than quadrupled in the last 30 years and the current tunnels are at capacity. The new tunnels were expected to carry 100,000 commuters into midtown (and take 22,000 cars off the road).
The project was also projected to raise NJ property values by $18,000,000, provide thousands of jobs, and expand the workforce for NYCs highest value businesses.
But hey its a “bad plan” right? Totally should have been “deep-sixed” to begin with, right???
Kolea:
No, I don’t expect construction companies to use any mass transit or bus system to carry around supplies although workers might be willing to use it.
However, what I do expect is for the City & County of Honolulu to enforce the rules concerning what can and cannot go on in residential neighborhoods. However, they can’t because they lack the staff in the Department of Planning & Permitting, Transportation Services & Honolulu Police Department to enforce the rules already on the books.
Besides, his vehicles only account for about one-twelfth of the vehicles on the block – not including his 20-30 employes who park on the street before carpooling to get to various work sites. They’re only parked there about ten hours a day.
This guy is not running an unobtrusive home-based business like I do. He could set up in an industrial-zoned area for under $60,000 a year – which is about ten percent of his company’s gross income.
The point I made above which you ignore is that building this system is better than doing nothing at all to provide additional fixed-rail mass transit options.
Furthermore, the train will reduce significantly the greenhouse gas emissions, reduce our dependency upon foreign oil and coal, and keep at least some of the $7 billion dollars we ship overseas here in Hawai`i. It will also reduce the number of young US/NATO adults who will die fighting wars in foreign oil-rich countries.
Will I use it – certainly not on a daily basis as I do with TheBus since I live in Kailua; however, I travel out to the Aiea/Pearl City/ West Kapolei area at least a dozen times a month on business. I have to go by car because the time it takes to travel by bus from where I transfer from the 57 line far exceeds the time I actually spend on business.
I know because I had to stop driving for four months earlier this year and it was a Royalle Paine in the Bunaccas to make those trips.
I don’t have kids in school, I don’t use Medicare or Social Security either. But others do, and I don’t object to paying for these services. hense, I am willing to pay taxes to underwrite the costs of constructing & operating a fixed-rail mass transit system.
Let me make it clear – this system is not the design I would have chosen nor would I have deleted the Waikiki and UH-Manoa destinations, but it is better than doing nothing.
Furthermore, doing nothing will result in the loss of federal funding – probably forever and definitely not in our lifetimes – so that means we will never have a mass transit system here on O`ahu.
My research shows that a fossil-fuel-powered train car carrying 100 passengers ten miles will use 50% less fuel than 75 cars carrying those same 100 passengers the same ten miles.
Furthermore, by the time the train is fully-operational, about 30% of the electricity being used to power it up will be from renewable resouces. No more than 20% of the vehicles will be even be hybrids let alone fully powered by renewables by then.
We need the construction & project support jobs now to help build our economy and we need well-planned transit-orineted development to create affordable workforce housing and to cut back on slurburbia encroaching on ag lands so that we can be food independent as well.
Whoops!!! hense = hence
definitely not in our lifetimes = definitely in our lifetimes
Why is it that if someone is pro-rail they are not independent? Or is in the developers pocket. Isn’t it possible to believe that the rail as proposed is a good idea and makes sense?
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-07-nj-governor-puts-a-halt-to-major-public-transit-project
Well. isn’t this special???
Sounds like an important project to serve the public is being jeopardize by a Mayor without the guts to do the right thing.
I’m hoping Lingle is inspired more by Republican Gov. Ahnuld of Kali-for-nia. He’s fully backing high-speed rail there.