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Corzine buys the ticket for Trans-Hudson rail tunnel in 2009
Thursday, May 11, 2006
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL
Star-Ledger Staff

Promising to help North Jersey commuters make a great escape from mounting congestion, Gov. Jon Corzine and top members of his administration said yesterday groundbreaking for construction of a railroad tunnel linking New Jersey and Manhattan will happen in 2009.
"For a lot of personal reasons, in 2009 there will be a shovel in the ground that year," said Corzine, who could be seeking re-election that year, too. "I am absolutely committed to that project, and it will happen."

Plans for the $6 billion Trans- Hudson Express (THE) tunnel dominated the annual Governor's Transportation Conference in Trenton, with top officials from New Jersey Transit, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and the state Department of Transportation laying out funding schedules and timetables for the project.

Philip K. Beachem, president of the highway contractor's lobbying group Alliance for Action, kicked off the seminar by unveiling a bi- state campaign to promote the project with the New York Building Conference.

Preliminary studies already are under way, and George Warrington, executive director of New Jersey Transit, said his agency is scheduled to hire an engineer in July to lay out the full alignment of the tunnel and its approaches through the Meadowlands, Palisades and under the Hudson River. By the end of the year, he said, the agency plans to seek a construction manager.
"We are very, very committed to delivering this project to the people of New Jersey over the next decade," he said. "It is the most impor tant project in 100 years."

Anthony Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority, added his agency's endorsement, saying construction of the tunnel was as important to the current generation as the building of the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridges were earlier.

"I'm committed to the Port Authority making a multibillion-dollar investment into that project," he said. "That's a project that clearly people years from now will look back and say it was the turning point in creating a regional economy."

Warrington said the current two tracks under the Hudson carry a maximum of 23 trains per hour. He said the state already has taken steps to expand the existing tun nel's carrying capacity by adding cars to trains, improving signaling, and preparing to introduce double- decker cars later this year.

"We're all done squeezing; there's simply nothing left to wring out," he said. "We must build a tunnel and we must build it now."

Dunstan McNichol covers state government issues. He may be reached at dmcnichol@starled ger.com or (609) 989-0341.

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