Make way for 500 more trains a day: the biggest news for New York commuters in 100 years

Railway Age, June, 2006 by William C. Vantuono

New Jersey Transit has tunnel vision, and that's a good thing, because it's tunnel vision that's going to create the capacity for NJ Transit and Amtrak to run about 500 additional commuter and intercity passenger trains per day into Penn Station New York. Those 500 trains represent a 50% increase over the 1,000-plus trains presently operated by NJ Transit, MTA Long Island Rail Road, and Amtrak.

Specifically, NJ Transit has its sights set on the two-track Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel, hereafter called "THE Tunnel," centerpiece of a massive, $6 billion (in 2005 dollars) civil engineering project broadly known as Access to the Region's Core (ARC, http://accesstotheregionscore.com). The project has been on the drawing boards for at least 15 years but in the past five or six has gained considerable momentum.

The existing Hudson River Tunnels (more commonly known as the North River Tunnels by local railroaders) are now at practical capacity, handling a maximum of 25 trains per hour and 42,500 peak-period, peak-direction passenger trips. When completed by 2015, if all goes as planned, ARC will double capacity into New York City to 48 trains per hour (44 of those will be NJ Transit). It will also accommodate a projected peak-period, peak-direction demand of more than 86,000 passenger trips.

ARC is the single-most significant New York Metropolitan Area passenger rail civil engineering project since the Pennsylvania Railroad punched holes under the Hudson and East Rivers and built the massive Penn Station New York (PSNY) complex in Manhattan nearly a century ago. For the region--the heart of the Northeast Corridor and the center of the universe for railway suppliers and consultants--doubling the number of rail tunnels under the Hudson River from two to four isn't just something that would be nice to have. Given the region's projected economic and housing growth, it's essential. ARC studies conducted jointly by NJ Transit, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority predict that, through 2030, over 70% of suburban household growth will occur "West of Hudson" (that's mostly New Jersey), and 290,000 new jobs will be created on Manhattan's West Side. Short term, THE Tunnel project will generate 4,000 new construction jobs.

Of course, there's far more infrastructure in ARC than THE Tunnel and a new eight-track station deep under 34th Street in Manhattan, adjacent to the existing PSNY complex. A virtual spaghetti-works of new main line trackage and interlockings and storage yards will give NJ Transit complete flexibility to operate any train in its system on any of its lines converging in northern New Jersey, providing rail commuters with the options and connections to take them just about anywhere they need to go, as well as the convenience of additional one-seat rides. The new 34th Street Station is projected to accommodate 23 of the maximum 48 trains per hour in the ARC service plan.

With new and replacement rolling stock, which could include innovative dual-mode locomotives and multiple-unit cars capable of operating under diesel power or a.c. catenary (sidebar, p. 28, and Transit Update, p. 19), NJ Transit will be able to offer one-seat rides into New York for passengers on NJ Transit's non-electrified Main, Bergen, Pascack Valley, and Raritan Valley lines.

While the original PSNY complex was conceived and built largely by one ambitious railroad and a handful of visionary railroaders, among them the PRR's John Edgar Thompson, Samuel Rea, and Alexander J. Cassatt (see Alred E. Fazio's accompanying article, "Access to the Region's Core, 1910," p. 34), ARC and THE Tunnel are the product of a complex combination of transit and political forces that have come together in a critical mass. Observers say it's remarkable that consensus has been reached by so many interests--NJ Transit, the Port Authority, Amtrak, the MTA, and the numerous political movers and shakers holding the purse strings on both sides of the Hudson River. That, according to NJ Transit Executive Director George D. Warrington, is because all the stakeholders have been able to put aside their parochial interests, recognizing that the only way to add capacity to the existing passenger rail system and promote regional economic growth is to build THE Tunnel and its associated infrastructure. It's not a question of "build it and they will come." It's "build it or we will choke."

Warrington, the New Jersey native who came home to NJ Transit after spending several frustrating years running Amtrak and dealing with apathetic and hostile politicians, has embraced ARC with enthusiasm. He believes the project has the broad political support to impel Congress to supply the its principal missing ingredient--a substantial federal commitment. Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democratic Senator who has brought home enough rail transit bacon to have a major NJ Transit commuter rail station (Secaucus Junction) named after him, has been one of ARC's staunchest advocates. He and his former Senate colleague from New Jersey, Jon Corzine, saw to it that language deeming ARC a project of overriding national importance was inserted last year into the six-year TEA-LU transportation bill. Corzine is now governor of New Jersey, and even though he's struggling with a massive state budget deficit and a Transportation Trust Fund that only until recently was teetering on the edge of collapse, he's made ARC a long-term priority. Corzine's replacement in the Senate, Democrat Robert Menendez, has signed on. About $500 million for engineering has been earmarked in the TTF's five-year renewal plan.