Build a rail tunnel under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey
The existing tunnel is 107 years old. It’s falling apart faster now because of damage from Hurricane Sandy nearly five years ago. But Amtrak can’t shut it down without disrupting rides for 200,000 people daily, most of them New Jersey Transit commuters from New Jersey to New York.
As New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said at Chao’s hearing, “more people use those tunnels than the entire population of South Dakota every day . . . If these tunnels would go down, they would cost about $100 million in lost productivity every single day.”
Already, commuters are suffering more unpredictability — and lost productivity at work and at home — as Amtrak scrambles to keep up with the deterioration to tracks, signals and electrical wires.
A new tunnel would make life better for Jersey residents and their New York employers and colleagues. But it’s an even bigger interstate project than that. More capacity would mean that Amtrak could offer more service from Washington through New York to Boston, part of a plan eventually to cut travel times among the three cities.
Crucially, too, the tunnel is a project that nobody objects to. For that reason, it’s a better prospect than New York and New Jersey’s other mega-project: a new bus terminal for the commuters who take buses instead of trains. Yes, the Port Authority Bus Terminal is falling apart, too, with its upper floors unable to bear the weight of today’s bigger buses.
But the reality is New York and New Jersey politicians have no clue how and where to build a new bus terminal without hurting the people who live and work in Hell’s Kitchen and without disrupting existing commutes. The two states still need years to show they can take these problems seriously, not money now.
Cost: $20 billion for the tunnel