Thursday, March 7, 2013

At Hudson Yards, an Amtrak provision for Gateway « Second Ave. Sagas

Some encouraging news on Amtrak's proposed Gateway Project to increase tunnel capacity under the Hudson River:
To that end, Amtrak has unveiled plans to consruct a tunnel box in the Hudson Yards space for future tunneling. "The point is we need to protect this alignment," Petra Todorovich Messick said earlier this week. "This is sort of the last viable connection to bring tunnels under the Hudson River and connect them directly to Penn Station."

Ben cites a $125 billion figure, which is the estimated cost to bring the entire Northeast Corridor up to high speed rail (HSR).  The cost of the Gateway project including the tunnel and portal bridges on the NJ side is estimated at $15 billion. 

Ultimately We need to increase trans-Hudson capacity, and the Gateway proposal is superior to the ARC project that Governor Christie stuck a shiv in a couple of years back.  Congress should see that this project has the resources to proceed.

Money is cheap.  People need jobs.  Mass transit is good for the environment, quality of life, and reduces our dependence on imported fossil fuels.  How about some infrastructure stimulus spending?

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