"The, uh, I haven't seen the Amtrak report so I can't really comment on it," said the governor. There were no follow-up questions. The governor's non-response on this particular topic was standard, for him. He has never made a particular priority of mass transit, and also abides by an unofficial nonaggression pact with Christie. (Cuomo wouldn't touch Bridgegate, at least publicly; Christie, who currently heads the Republican Governors Association, won't touch Cuomo's Republican opponent.) Now, to properly repair the cross-Hudson tunnels, Amtrak will have to wait for federal support for a replacement tunnel project called Gateway, which as yet has no capital funding commitment attached to it and would be completed, at the earliest, in the middle of the next decade. Or it will have to take one of the two tubes out of operation, which, as an Amtrak official said yesterday, would have "draconian" consequences for rail service between New York and New Jersey. This is unbelievable. Granted, Chris Christie screwed everything up when he unilaterally scrapped decades of work on Access to the Region's Core.
But Amtrak's Gateway proposal is vital to cross-Hudson transit. If one of those tunnels goes, and we're getting to the point where it's not inconceivable, NY is in for a serious awakening.
Cuomo has similarly ignored the sorry state of the BQE cantilever, canceling urgently needed planning for the inevitable rebuilding to focus on the Tappanzee. And don't get me started about LICH.
Shared from the Digg iPhone app:
"The, uh, I haven't seen the Amtrak report so I can't really comment on it," said the governor. There were no follow-up questions.
The governor's non-response on this particular topic was standard, for him. He has never made a particular priority of mass transit, and also abides by an unofficial nonaggression pact with Christie. (Cuomo wouldn't touch Bridgegate, at least publicly; Christie, who currently heads the Republican Governors Association, won't touch Cuomo's Republican opponent.)
Now, to properly repair the cross-Hudson tunnels, Amtrak will have to wait for federal support for a replacement tunnel project called Gateway, which as yet has no capital funding commitment attached to it and would be completed, at the earliest, in the middle of the next decade. Or it will have to take one of the two tubes out of operation, which, as an Amtrak official said yesterday, would have "draconian" consequences for rail service between New York and New Jersey.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/10/8553816/cuomo-declines-take-new-yorks-amtrak-issue
Typos courtesy of my iPhone
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