We told you this already a few weeks back, but today, Governor Chris Christie terminated the Access to the Region’s Core project again, and it seems that this time, he really means it. So Baristaville, say adios to ARC and a big hello to your future commuting tunnel.
Christie cited money as the reason for the decision, of course. The most recent projections indicate that the project would have had overruns of between $2.3 billion and $5.3 billion beyond the $8.7 billion tunnel price tag. With the federal government and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey each allocating $3 billion and the state committing $2.7 billion, it was feared that the overages would come from the state’s coffers. The Governor said he wouldn’t place this type of debt on the citizens of New Jersey.
So a mere two days after the most recent NJT commuter nightmare — which closed the Hudson River tunnel for Monday’s evening rush hour and continued to wreak havoc the next morning — it looks like train travel to and from the Big Apple will stay pretty much status quo.
Finally someone is making decisions based on fiscal sanity. Hopefully it will become a trend.
Where is the button on this thing?
Oops…I meant: Where is the DISLIKE button on this thing?
I’m not hoping for fiscal sanity, I’m looking for Goldman, JP, et al to come in and Jersey how 1+1 properly leveraged can equal 5.
and show…
Now if we could just get rid of a few SACs all will be right in ROC’s world!
I see no reason why commuters cannot be loaded individually into the Fenix capsule used to extract the Chilean miners, and winched through the tunnel to NYC.
I acknowledge the fact that only slim commuters would be able to avail themselves of this option, but Montclair — home to bike riders and granola eaters — should have more than its share of riders eligible for this service.
Christie is holding out for some of that stimulus money…how about it, President Obama?
Wasn’t there an agreement proposed though that would allow NJ to be off the hook for any cost overruns? Why wouldn’t that work?
According to the NJ Chamber of Commerce, the state received $850 millions from the federal stimulus package.
What was that I heard about Obama saying that there were no real “shovel ready projects”? That that statement was just campaign hype. Well here’s one. I applaud our governor for standing up to the flack and protecting NJ taxpayers from footing more then their fair share of a bill that is certain to be fraught with enormous overruns, for is a textbook example of a Federal infrastructure project. Glad we don’t have a Democratic stooge in office that would have rolled over and saddled us with union overtime costs that would have been on par with the Big Dig. “Those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it.” Looks like someone learned a thing or two about how not to get fleeced. Oh, and I commute.
Fiscal sanity? Aren’t we already $300 million in the hole for this tunnel to nowhere? Commuting by train into NYC should be an easier experience in this day and age.
This is only “fiscal sanity” when viewed through the narrowly warped lens we’ve become accustomed to in contemporary politics. Infrastructure investment pays off over longer periods of time (unfortunately, longer than the average elected term and/or campaign cycle), and ignoring infrastructure advancement costs unfathomable sums over time.
There are ways to make projects like this work, but they have too little in the way of direct, short-term political benefit.
Right on Deadeye. Kudos to Christie for standing his ground. This would be an ideal project to receive stimulus money. I am sure we are not the first people to think of that.
As for already being $300M in the hole, we can’t blame Christie for that one.
My name is Martta and I’m a commuter.
“Fiscal sanity? Aren’t we already $300 million in the hole for this tunnel to nowhere? ”
which is 2% of the projected cost and overruns. Yes. Sanity.
Wait – the same people who think the federal government is too big and shouldn’t be handing out ANY stimulus money to anyone because the key to our economic growth is to let the private sector figure it out on their own (even though that hasn’t really worked out so well in the past), also want stimulus money for the state to build a tunnel? You can’t have it both ways. FYI, all the road work being done in Montclair is with Recovery Act Funds.
You know what’s insanity? One tunnel into and out of NYC, the major business hub of the world.
The proposed tunnel–which will benefit not just people from NJ but anyone traveling to and from the state–is just the sort of project that SHOULD receive federal funding (because it aids everyone, not just the people of NJ).
“One tunnel into and out of NYC, the major business hub of the world.”
Well, the one. And then the path train’s 2 tunnels, oh and the lincoln tunnel, oh yeah, and the holland tunnel, and the GWB…
Yeah one tunnel…insanity!
Oh excuse me, ROC, I should have specified BY NJT RAIL because you can’t read between the lines and just want to argue w/ someone who has a differing opinion.
The tunnel DID receive federal funding.
“You know what’s insanity? One tunnel into and out of NYC, the major business hub of the world.”
Amen. Does the LIRR hava a dedicated tunnel in and out of NYC? Yes. Does Metro North have a dedicated tunnel in and out of NYC? Yes. Does NJT have one? No.
This should have been done a long time ago. Now it will never happen. That is not forward thinking at all.
Frankly, I believe that overruns should have been covered by the Port Authority (as this is as much a NY/NJ project as there ever was).
This project was so very needed and now it is dead forever.
You suck Christie!
@jerseygurl Are you not as concerned about excessive costs for this tunnel as you are about your local taxes?
I agree with the decision that Christie has made but I do not think that this is the last that we’ll hear of it.
OK, so what’s Christie’s sane alternative? Make it harder for people in NJ to work in NYC and bring $$ back home? Lose relative property value to communities with better transportation? Throwing up our hands in disgust at the expense doesn’t solve the problem.
“Throwing up our hands in disgust at the expense doesn’t solve the problem.”
When you absolutely cannot afford it? It sure does. The “problem” is we’re broke. And it’s going to be like this for awhile.
But at least we have $100,000 per year elementary school drug abuse coordinators! (9 of ’em in fact!)
If only this kind of sense had been exercised locally when it was clear that the Bullock School wasn’t really needed.
Using the already sunk costs as a reason to continue in the face of unknown overrun possibilities is what people in more fiscally responsible times would have called “throwing good money after bad.”
No one knows what the tunnel will end up costing. And it’s telling that no one is even pretending to know. And absolutely no one is saying that it can be brought in on time and at a certain price. Christie is absolutely correct to not take the sucker’s bet of putting New Jersey on the hook for any overruns, which may end up representing more than half of the final cost.
I love to ride the water taxi across the river. It is actually more punctual than NJ transit and doesn’t require an expensive tunnel. Let’s all move down by the water!
Similar to the classic 1977 “Ford to NY: Drop Dead” headline,
“Christie to NJ: Get In Line and Wait”
I’m a bit surprised more people aren’t supportive of Christie’s decision. We’re a bankrupt state and this is the largest discretionary expenditure we had in front of us. And the tunnel and its annex station in NYC weren’t even properly planned. I’d love to see this happen one day but it just doesn’t make sense right now.
How reassuringly typical of Montclair that several posters above grumble that, hang the cost, the tunnel should be built, goldangit. Still, even by this site’s generally low standards for political discourse, a remark above like “You suck, Christie” is nothing more than mean-spiritedness and merely indicates the poster’s inability to grapple with the English language in a way that reflects actual literacy.
And for all those who do support the tunnel, need I remind of the fiasco known as the Second Avenue Subway? (Actually begun round 1965 in terms of the initial digging, but still not up and running.) And unless some of those disappointed posters above are chronological adolescents (as opposed to the emotional kind their prose marks them to be), the tunnel would probably never even have been open during their working lives if commonly supposed to include retirement round 65.
Great news. I’m just hoping we can take a couple of billion dollars we saved on the proposed tunnel and use it to help finish the Xanadu project. I think we owe it to our children to provide them with an indoor venue to downhill ski when the weather is less than favorable.
Hey yall! No rlly sure why people are effing “pissed” about the tunnel. Kind of feel that suburban mainstreamers get too excited about going to the “city” to have an authentic experience. Maybe they need to find some bros in mtc to relate to (via starbucks). Create some art to enhance their personal brand. So many trapped people. Just want to feel alive. I guess deep inside we all need to escape the confines of our world and fly free.
Are ppl from mtc relevant?
Will a tunnel to the citee create a brooklyn west?
Should I forget about my dreams and become a cool dad?
Can i still score mad dank in nyc?
Is it still alt to ride the train?
I can’t believe that I’m writing this (I’m as far to the left as you can go), but I back Gov. Christie 100% on this, and other, decisions. I didn’t vote for him (but would if the elections were now), but I very much admire how he’s actually trying to do something about the fiscal mess that we’re in in NJ.
I think I need new glasses, I have tunnel vision.
Until they find a way to grow money on trees, we simply can’t afford this right now. Agreed, it’s a great project but we may have to wait a few years until the state is fiscally solvent. In the meantime, why don’t our geniuses in the DOT figure out a way to improve the less-than-perfect system we already have? It’s 2010 and they still haven’t come up with a way to properly deal with traffic jams. Putting in bus lanes years ago helped but it is far from perfect. A new tunnel is a super idea but who’s to say that a new tunnel won’t be subject to the same issues that our current tunnels experience?
The whole premise of this is odd. With a new tunnel does not come a better commute as you simply cannot divide the current (or future) commuters by the number of tunnels and claim it will be better.
BECAUSE, IF the new tunnel is build untold thousands will think they can now commute. Remember, the more lanes a highway has doesn’t reduce traffic. (Witness the never-ending “expansion” on the Turnpike/Parkway).
Christie is right on the money.
The answer has more to do with WHEN the tunnels are used. I set NY meetings for anytime between 10:30 and 2 knowing I can get in and out in 20 mins.
So rather than spend BILLIONS on a tunnel, why don’t these geniuses work to get employers to be more flexible with their hours?