Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee
This^
A PATH branch should have been built in lieu of the Hudson County southern leg of HBLR (and really ideally all of HBLR) though Bayonne and across to Staten Island. Any other place of planet earth would have realized this is what was needed, but of course the toxic combination of lack of political will and aggressive investment in transit as a national priority means it never happened.
While we are on the subject I've often thought that it's possible The TriboroRX scheme isn't ambitious enough. Instead of terminating at the bay it should dive into a trans-Hudson tunnel, cut across the north shore of SI, jump under or over the KVK though southern Bayonne and over the Newark Bay to Newark Airport. Of course this suggests the obvious question, why not have the "TriboroRX" be a PATH heavy rail line that connects Manhattan-EWR-SI-southern Brooklyn-JFK (with a split at Broadway Junction sharing tracks with Atlantic Ave LIRR until a new trench or tunnel under Conduit Ave an into JFK or a split at Linden Blvd with a tunnel under Linden until Conduit Ave). Certain trains would run to JFK from New Jersey and certain continuing up to the Bronx. This would effectively serve as a transit belt line for the dense core and in my opinion exactly the kind of massive Crossrail level investment that is necessary for the future of the city. To maximize the efficiency of new infrastructure the Conduit Ave route would also be shared by the proposed JFK super express to Manhattan.
|
I don't know the specifics about the route, but if I understand it correctly maybe it'd make sense to just do LRT and integrate all the disparate lines that already exist.
Both the Bayonne and Goethals bridges have already been designed to accommodate LRT vehicles across their spans, which completely obviates the need to tunnel for connections between Staten Island and New Jersey.
Certainly, some type of PATH-LRT hybrid could at least be acceptable?
Not running LRT along PATH, but moreso the idea of conceiving of it as a PA property. I'd imagine it would be enough to effectively funnel Manhattan-bound passengers to Exchange Place and Hoboken and others into Brooklyn-Queens-The Bronx -- of course, long term, the LIRR needs to be extended from the Atlantic Terminal to WTC and on towards Jersey City-Bayonne-Newark...
Anyways, there must be some rolling-stock that is acceptable for street-running (most of the Newark and HBLR systems are in exclusive ROW anyways, and the parts that aren't could easily be made to do so), and also at excess of 40-50mph along conventional ROW?
I think there are such systems in Calgary and one planned for Ottawa?
I've always figured it best to integrate the Newark LRT with this project (as I've understood you to have laid it out) at EWR and the HBLR in Staten Island along the proposed West Short LRT, convert the existing SIRR to LRT, and build the TriboroughRX as LRT.
Provisionally, NJ could get off it's butt and build that planned Middlesex LRT from the Raritan Valley Line (somewhere around the Bound Brooks) to the NEC (at New Brunswick) and towards Elizabeth and across the Bayonne Bridge via the Amboys (which would connect to the North Jersey Coast Line).
As far as I understand it, a properly designed LRT system could easily achieve the through-put necessary (especially with accompanied service expansion on existing rail - NJ Transit, PATH, NYCT - services) and doesn't miss out on expanding on existing assets as would simply expanding it as a HRT/PATH extension?
A rather high-frequency regional system could relieve a lot of capacity on the regional RRs -- in Jersey, at least.