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Dear friends of Regional Rail:
In lieu of our next meeting of the Regional Rail Working Group (RRWG) I would urge all who can, to attend the next ARC Regional Citizens Liaison Committee (RCLC) on Wednesday, February 27, 08, 5.30-7.00pm at the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) offices at One Newark Center, 17th Floor in Downtown Newark, at Raymond Blvd. and McCarter Highway, one block from Penn Station, Newark. E-mail RSVPs to info@accesstotheregionscore.com We will resume our regular monthly meetings, now on the fourth Wednesday of
each month, on March 26, 08, 6-8pm at our regular meeting place: Conference
Room, NYPD Downtown Center 104 Washington Street (just north of Rector
Street), Lower Manhattan.
The RRWG has devoted many hours advocating for NJ Transit's original
plan -- "Alternative G" -- which would have brought the new Hudson River rail
tunnel directly into existing tracks and platforms at Penn Station, and then
continued under 31st Street and Park Avenue to existing tracks and platforms
on
the Lower Level of Grand Central Terminal. This plan -- the mother
of
all train station connections -- would have tied the two stations together,
permitting thru train service between points in Westchester-Connecticut
and
points in New Jersey. In the major Investment Study (MIS) phase of
planning for the new tunnel the ARC planning team, hosted by MTA, NJ Transit
and PANYNJ, found that Alternative G would have cost the least to build
and
operate, attracted the most riders, and diverted the greatest number of
motorists of three final alternatives studied. It would have afforded
West
of Hudson riders easy access to Manhattan's East Side, the nation's premiere
office concentration, and would have made it easier for workers from points
north of NYC to reach growing West Midtown developments. It would have
allowed Amtrak's Northeast Corridor trains to serve both business centers en
route from Washington to Boston, making the train more competitive with air
travel.
The MIS planning study found no "fatal flaws" in the connection.
A
key to making this plan work is for NJ Transit trains to operate on Metro-North
tracks and vice versa. These inter-operability agreements are quite common
in the freight industry, and could be negotiated between the two
transit carriers, with crews balanced.
Some five years ago the leadership in both states declined to advance this
very attractive plan. Instead, NJ Transit was left to "go it alone",
pressing for a deep cavern dead-end station under 34th Street. This plan
is costly, inconvenient and poses a clear security risk. Now with both
states facing severe budget challenges, it is especially important to move
forward on a more cost-effective plan -- Alternative G.
This plan can be advanced in phases. The first phase would be to
construct the tunnel and connection into Penn Station. A second phase could
include construction of a portion of the tunnels under 31st Street, serving
as
"tail tracks", increasing the capacity of the initial phase. Finally, the
connection could be completed. The first phase was examined in great detail
in
the DEIS published last year. It was intended as an ancillary link, accompanying
the proposed deep cavern under 34th Street. But it could serve as a first
phase of a substitute -- the original Alternative G. The DEIS, publsihed
in February 07, found no significant negative impacts that could not
be
mitigated in a satisfactory manner. Now, NJ Transit claims that these
impacts cannot be accepted and the link to Penn Station must be
dropped. A revised plan would have only a deep cavern station -- now
proposed to be a mind-numbing 175 feet below 34th Street -- and no
connection to Penn Station.
It is important for NJ Transit to hear from rail advocates from both sides
of the Hudson. Please make every effort to attend!
Please call or e-mail me if you need more information about this
meeting.
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The purpose of the working group is to develop and advance plans for converting the region's commuter rail lines into a regional rail system, with fast, frequent service and affordable, integrated fares. The group also considers changes to rapid transit and light rail transit that are "regional" in scale. Regional Rail issues are discussed on our website: www.rrwg.org The Working Group includes: Empire State Passengers Association NJ Association of Railroad Passengers Lackawanna Coalition Five Towns Rural Transit, Inc. Committee for Better Transit Institute for Rational Urban Mobility Sane Aviation for Everyone, Inc. (SAFE) (our newest participant) geo George Haikalis Chair, Regional Rail Working Group One Washington Square Village, Suite 5D New York, NY 10012 phone: 212-475-3394 geohaikalis@irum.org www.irum.org www.auto-free.org www.vision42.org www.rrwg.org |
