Bunker station gets deeper
October 11th 2007 11:51 am
An article in today’s Star-Ledger reports how the new Manhattan station connected to T.H.E Tunnel is now planned to be 175 feet below street level. This was covered on this Blog 3 months ago, but the issue is finally gaining traction. The location of the new station is significant in respect to customer convenience, customer safety, connections to other transportation, operational flexibility and future expansion.
Al Papp, Jr., testified at yesterday’s NJ Transit Board of Directors meeting and provides the following information:
Joe Clift (quoted in the Star-Ledger article), George Haikalis, Dave Alan and myself all testified saying that the current plan is only a glimmer of what was once proposed - nothing more than a 6 track addition to NYP at a considerable distance - both laterally and vertically - from the existing station, along with a host of other objections.
As Joe pointed out so clearly, the T.H.E. tunnel and Portal Bridge projects, as now envisioned, constitute a brand new eight mile two track railroad from Kearny to the new 34th Street Station, which will be unusable by Amtrak (except, perhaps, in emergencies). NJT will dispatch it, control all scheduling and be freed from any Amtrak “interference” in those critical last few miles east of Newark. One can argue both sides of this issue; what can’t be argued is that operational flexibility - both for NJT and Amtrak - will be restricted. Once the “decision” is made near Kearny for eastbound trains, that’s it. All these trains using the new trans-Hudson tunnel terminating in the “deep dungeon” will have to exit westbound through the new tunnel. Think of it as a reverse roach motel. They go in and they must come out! No longer is the asymmetrical interlocking on the Manhattan side in the picture (as Silber correctly states).
NJT is proposing to construct a stub end “deep dungeon” terminal that will forever preclude a link to GCT (unless Alternative “G” is resurrected in some form by a generation yet unborn). Due to construction conflicts with NYC Water Tunnel #1 beneath 6th Avenue, the lower 3 tracks under 34th Street will never extend further east than that and probably not the upper 3 either (although Executive Director Sarles didn’t preclude this at the September 7, 2007 meeting). Recall in the last twin 2 track over 2 track iteration, all 8 tracks (6 to be constructed initially) would have had stub tracks extending to 5th Avenue - and thus gave advocates some minimal consolation that links to both the LIRR ESA (lower level 34th Street tracks) and GCT (upper level 34th Street tracks) could be built.
The issue of NJT’s $675,000 expenditure for “lobbyists” for the tunnel was mentioned by both Alan and myself, wondering why such an “outreach” effort couldn’t have been employed to convince New York elected officials of the benefits of an NYP - GCT rail connection.
Note that Joe Clift will be a speaker at the NJ-ARP Annual Meeting in Jamesburg on October 21. Joe will will present a PowerPoint presentation on the continuing de-evolving nature of T.H.E. Tunnel. Time is running out for discounted advanced registration for the meeting. Download a meeting registration form (64 KB PDF) and mail it so NJ-ARP receives it by Wednesday, October 17.
alewifebp responded on 11 Oct 2007 at 2:26 pm #
All very interesting. Sounds like a whole lot of money for not much extra. And if Portal and additional track capacity between Newark and the tunnels are not provided, the bottleneck is just going to be moved. Spending a whole lot of money for nothing.
However, one thing that I have seen regarding the discussion of THE Tunnel is that no real alternatives are presented that may work better. I’m not sure which way is going to work better, but I think some of the discussion should be pointed at what else can be done.
Joe Versaggi responded on 11 Oct 2007 at 2:47 pm #
You want to see an alternative ? Here is an alternative that can be done at half the cost without use of fantasy dual-mode engines or expensive constrution of Bergen Loop:
http://www.subwaytosecaucus.com/
It was ranked #4 from the top of all 138 original ARC alternatives. It’s the PATH concept at NWK expounded to use a #7 extenstion from Javits to Secaucus. It has great distribution across 42nd Street.
If you are hung up on a “one-seat ride” to anywhere in or under Manhattan, and disregard the passenger’s experience to work once they get off the NJT train, you won’t like it.