Christie Sinks ARC
Governor Chris Christie terminated the “Access to the Regions Core” tunnel construction under the Hudson River yesterday after a month long review of the projects finances. The review revealed that New Jersey taxpayers would have been on the hook for $2.3-$5.3 billion in projected cost overruns in excess of the originally approved $8.7 billion budget.
The project would have provided rail service from the ill fated Xanadu monstrosity in the Meadowlands to a new station 150 feet below Macy’s basement. Critics of ARC, which was approved by Governor Corzine, say the rails would better serve the region if the New York side of the rails connected with Penn Station and Grand Central station in New York.
Christie said the decision to terminate the project was based on finances and not the location of the New York terminal.
The project as originally approved was to be finances by New Jersey, the Port Authority of NY/NJ and the federal government. New York was not contributing to the cost of the project.
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I think this project was a boondoggle from the beginning. It demonstrates exactly what is wrong with federal government funding of transportation projects. Politicians don’t give a damn about what is actually built. They just want to take credit for bring money to New Jersey.
A major reason why NJ Transit has a big deficit is because of mindless federally funded rail projects. These projects include the River Line that runs from Camden to Trenton and the Atlantic City Rail Line. The deficits from operating those lines are staggering.
There is no reason to think that there would be a 60% increase in commuters going to New York by 2030. Where did someone come up with this number? It’s down in the past five years. And, there are other options to serve commuters such as ferries and buses.
Another fabrication presented by the proponents of this project was that failure to build the project will cause 23,000 more cars to be on the road in New Jersey. I don’t know how they came up with this number either. I think most of the ridership for the rail tunnel would have come from those who are served by other NJ Transit and PATH service. So that 23,000 cars is a fabrication too.
And we would weaken the PATH line, bus service and ferry service by building the ARC.
And. lets talk about another issue. In the 1960s, liberals objected to a number of rail projects on the grounds that these projects were primarily designed to benefit certain land owners. Voronado planned to build an Empire State Building sized tower in New York City very close to the proposed station. Why would they do so? Because the rail tunnel would make that piece of property much more valuable? In essence, the rail tunnel significantly increases the value of property that becomes very accessible by rail. That property being massively increased in value is in New York, not New Jersey. So we would have been spending a massive amount of money to aid a New York City real estate developer.
Christie should have cancelled this project the day that he came into office.