ARC Cancellation Leaves New Jersey-New York Rail Connections in Race Against Time

The second transportation bungle of Gov. Christie's administration, according to an article by Dana Rubenstein: "[his] unilateral cancellation of a new underwater rail tunnel connecting New Jersey to Midtown Manhattan, a project saddled with an ungainly name—Access to the Region’s Core" (ARC)—i.e., "a new tunnel under the Hudson River to connect the commuter-rich suburbs of northern New Jersey with job-rich midtown Manhattan."

The fully funded $8.7 billion project broke ground in 2009, but "in an early assertion of his intention to redefine the relationship between New Jersey and New York, argued that the project was too risky and cancelled it, and redirected much of its funding to road repairs within his own state." Back in 2012, the Government Accountability Office produced a report finding that Gov. Christie has "misstated" information used to support his decision.

The dubious political reasoning revealed for the project's cancellation now appears even more harmful, after Amtrak released a report last week finding that "salt left behind by Hurricane Sandy’s floodwaters continues to weaken the tunnels’ concrete and corrode its cast iron and steel" and have, at most, 20 years left. (Amtrak uses tunnels that would have been supplemented by the Access to the Region's Core project, allowing them to close some of their tunnels for repairs.)

Meanwhile ARC's replacement project, Gateway, still lacks funding and if all goes as well as ideally possible, the project would be done in the middle of next the decade.