[chris08876]

Cries for New Hudson River Rail Tunnels Grow Louder

Consecutive days of major delays on Penn Station-bound trains last week have prompted louder calls for new trans-Hudson train tunnels, with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx calling a sit down with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to discuss funding the new tunnel—funding being, of course, the crux of the issue. The estimated cost would be around $15 billion, and it is currently very unclear where all of that would come from. The controversy has led Christie to come under fire for his 2010 decision to nix the ARC tunnel, which could have been finished as early as 2017, over concerns that New Jersey would have be taking on too much of the costs.

The head of the Port Authority also just sent an open letter to Foxx attempting to pressure him to commit more that $3 billion in federal funding (the cap for the ARC tunnel) to the new project. Essentially, everybody is involved is in a multi-way standoff over actually paying for the tunnel, but as the need grows increasingly desperate, someone will have to blink.

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http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/0...row_louder.php