Amtrak Gateway Tunnels

They are still talking about $11 Billion to be spent on the cross harbor freight rail tunnel to the south. I would think there may be a way to share some of these ridiculous costs by planning and building these tunnels adjacent to each other (say the freight tunnel parallel and just south of the passenger tunnels). Checking Google Earth, it would certainly be possible to get to Fresh Pond that way.

It would have to be cheaper to bore across Manhattan island than across a deep wide harbor as planned. And the physical location of things makes it look like a no brainer alternative at the very least.

electricron wrote:I keep returning to this major point, it's too expensive. It's too big for the existing Penn Station. It'll be just right for a future expanded Penn Station that will never be built. When will this project face realities and start a diet to reduce its scope and expense?

I'm beginning to think that for any new tunnel to be built into Penn Station ownership of the railroad and station will have to change. Maybe it is time for States along the corridor to take full ownership of the NEC. With local ownership, maybe more realistic and affordable updates will be proposed.

Considering the current situation, the project is by no means "too big for the existing Penn Station." And what difference will ownership make? NY and NJ jointly agreed to fund 1/2 the tunnel. It was a rare situation of the two states working together along with the Federal government to make this happen.

As mentioned earlier, politics are playing into this.

It's not just expanding capacity (which is a good thing) it's also about ENSURING capacity. Sandy did a number on the existing bores. They can't last forever. If we lose one, we're in a world of hurt.

That said, I'm still glad ARC was cancelled. It was truly a project to nowhere.

Greg Moore wrote:
That said, I'm still glad ARC was cancelled. It was truly a project to nowhere.

Agree. All the articles keep saying 'When Christie killed ARC" as though it was a bad setback. It honestly resulted in a smarter solution.

JamesRR wrote:Agree. All the articles keep saying 'When Christie killed ARC" as though it was a bad setback. It honestly resulted in a smarter solution.

I agree that Gateway is far superior to ARC in terms of current and future functionality. That said, why did Christie take his ball and go home, rather than staying engaged in the process insisting on a better solution from the start?

bostontrainguy wrote:They are still talking about $11 Billion to be spent on the cross harbor freight rail tunnel to the south. I would think there may be a way to share some of these ridiculous costs by planning and building these tunnels adjacent to each other (say the freight tunnel parallel and just south of the passenger tunnels). Checking Google Earth, it would certainly be possible to get to Fresh Pond that way.

It would have to be cheaper to bore across Manhattan island than across a deep wide harbor as planned. And the physical location of things makes it look like a no brainer alternative at the very least.

Spitballing two issues off the top of my head:

• Boring underneath Manhattan is a nightmare unto itself. You still have to go deep underground to avoid hitting all of the underground utilities and structures that clutter the space underneath, and then find the space needed to properly provide a low-grade elevation on each side. (The current East River portals around Sunnyside/LI City make about the only sense.)
• Now you need an East River tunnel for freight, instead of one longer tunnel to go under the bay.
• Now you also need to provide a place for said tunnel to empty out towards that can provide for the destinations the freight would want to go. (I.e, putting it out near Sunnyside means you can't service Fresh Ponds and other LI freight operations as a thru service like if you came in from the Bay Ridge branch and the cross-harbor tunnel. The former is more logistically complicated.)
• You'd have to go under and therefore deeper to get under Penn, or go around it. Going around it would involve some (likely) undesirable track configurations for freight service.
• Changes in how to ventilate the tunnel of exhaust. The bay tunnel would be longer and also only have two places to actually vent the fumes, but I also would have a hard time believing you'd have a better time pumping out much of the Manhattan-tunnel-fumes in Manhattan itself. (For air-quality concerns.)
• I don't think anything but the most neutral of substances would be allowed to move through there, given the kind of uproar that might happen if it derailed in the tunnel. (Yeah, a lot of this still moved thru NYC anyways, but tell the public that!)

But I digress, this is about Amtrak!

mtuandrew wrote:

JamesRR wrote:Agree. All the articles keep saying 'When Christie killed ARC" as though it was a bad setback. It honestly resulted in a smarter solution.

I agree that Gateway is far superior to ARC in terms of current and future functionality. That said, why did Christie take his ball and go home, rather than staying engaged in the process insisting on a better solution from the start?

It'd likely involve active or tacit admission he was wrong, which isn't something politicians like to do. Nor what voters expect out of politicians: you have to be perfect, or at least consistent. In general, at least, the President turns that conventional wisdom on its head. (Not wading any deeper into those waters, either! Only discussing politics insofar as they're relevant to the topic at hand.)

Now, considering how his reputation/career imploded anyways? Perhaps it might've been better for him to have swallowed that pill to admit he made the wrong call and to try and make it better, so he could at least have something to point to as positive. Hindsight is 20/20, and that statement also operates under the assumption he legitimately cared about this as an objective in of itself. (If he had any personal knowledge of the whole Bridgegate kerfuffle... that might suggest otherwise as to how he considers transportation projects.)

mtuandrew wrote:I agree that Gateway is far superior to ARC in terms of current and future functionality. That said, why did Christie take his ball and go home, rather than staying engaged in the process insisting on a better solution from the start?

I seem to recall that he wanted the money that would be kept by NJ -after giving the rest back to the Feds- to be used for repair projects on the state's highways and bridges so interest in getting involved in making ARC into what would be Gateway was likely not on his priority list. Should it have been? Absolutely. It certainly would have made NY and Amtrak/DC partners and co-funders of the project thereby allowing Christie to maintain some sort of "cred" as a responsible fiscal conservative in the eyes of his base.

Greg Moore wrote:That said, I'm still glad ARC was cancelled. It was truly a project to nowhere.

Do you commute into Manhattan every day? I doubt there is a regular commuter who would not take ARC over a pie-in-the-sky Gateway.

Don't get me wrong. As proposed Gateway is technically superior to ARC on so many levels. It is a better project allowing for redundancy and robustness. It makes no sense as a project majorly funded by the states, especially the tunnel only part. At the state level the politicos need to cut ribbons of new stuff the way Cuomo did with Second Avenue Subway. Spending $10+ billion of state money on a tunnel without getting more commuter trains in is not going to fly in Trenton and Albany. Not as long as the old tunnels are operational. No politician gets rewarded for providing robustness. The politicos will get made fun of on late night talk shows about wasting billions of dollars and get blamed for graft and bribes by the general public even if none occurred. Gateway will not be built with mostly local money. ARC type project could be built with local money because it gives the politicians cover that the money was spent on something new, on service expansion. This is the way politics works, whether you or I like it or not.

BTW, Gateway got downgraded to "Medim-Low" priority by the FTA (https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/ft ... y-tunnels/). So was the Portal Bridge. There is no money coming for construction over the next 3-4 years at least.

EuroStar wrote:

Greg Moore wrote:That said, I'm still glad ARC was cancelled. It was truly a project to nowhere.

Do you commute into Manhattan every day? I doubt there is a regular commuter who would not take ARC over a pie-in-the-sky Gateway.

I'm a daily commuter into Manhattan on NJ Transit. I've been commuting for over 20 years on the NEC. I'm glad ARC was killed. It is a short-sighted project. 2 tunnels that only serve 6 terminal tracks, in a completely isolated, deep station - separate from Penn.

Gateway gives you 2 tunnels the complement the existing 2, and ultimately 7 new tracks that are add-ons to the existing 21. It's an expansion, not a separate facility. It benefits Amtrak, NJT and even LIRR.

Christie killed ARC for financial reasons, not because he believed there was a smarter build solution.

You and I must have a very different tolerance for spending time stuck on a stopped train under the Hudson. I would gladly take 6 new tracks today over 7 tomorrow (I mean 50 years from tomorrow). Neither you, nor I will be alive to take a ride through a new heavy rail tunnel. Anyway, we might need to learn how to love the bus, as no money will be coming anytime soon ...

What if we paired Gateway with a fourth Lincoln tube? Maybe that would get some highway-lobby opposition off our backs.

If you're going to do that... go nuts and extend the 7 line to NJ also. Seriously.

Greg Moore wrote:If you're going to do that... go nuts and extend the 7 line to NJ also. Seriously.

How about extending PATH to the Meadowlands via WEE and SEC instead? I have a personal preference for PANYNJ handling interstate transit whenever possible, rather than MTA.

From usnews,com
DOT Secretary Acknowledges Trump Wants Gateway Tunnel Project Deleted from Budget.

https://www.usnews.com/news/business/ar ... el-project" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chuck wants Gateway and the Donald wants the DACA fix. Deal gentlemen!

There are 3 major choke-points for the corridor: the Hudson (Gateway), the Potomac (Long Bridge) and politics. Two can be resolved, the other one seems to be permanent. Gateway would benefit Amtrak, NJTransit and the LIRR patrons. A second Long Bridge would benefit Amtrak and VRE patrons as well as CSX. The effected systems and states from Boston to Richmond should all pony up some funding.
My $0.02.