Updated financial plan for Hudson Tunnel plan developed in partnership with FTA

Mass Transit ^ | August 31, 2021 | Mischa Wanek-Libman

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

An updated financial plan for the Hudson Tunnel Project, a cornerstone of the Gateway Program, has been developed with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and was submitted to FTA on Aug. 27. The plan includes a price increase of nearly $700 million from the 2020 financial plan, but project partners point out their commitment to managing costs and schedule is also reflected in the new financial plan.

“The Hudson Tunnel Project is of the utmost importance to the economic well-being of New Jersey, our region and our country,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “The updated financial plan that is being submitted today exhibits the commitment of our state and that of our partners to the commencement and completion of the single largest critical infrastructure project in the United States.”

What has gone up in cost?

The Hudson Tunnel Project elements include the construction of a new two-track rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River, the comprehensive rehabilitation of the existing 110-year-old North River Tunnel and the completion of the third and final section of the Hudson Yards Concrete Casing. The cost estimate for these elements is now projected to be $12.3 billion and while that number reflects an increase from the 2020 financial plan, it remains $500 million under the 2017 construction cost estimate of $12.7 billion.

The estimated construction cost of the new Hudson River Tunnel and third section of the Hudson Yards Concrete Casing is $10.1 billion, which is an increase of slightly more than three percent to the previous estimate of $9.8 billion. The estimated construction cost to rehabilitate the North River Tunnel is $2.2 billion, which is an increase of more than 22 percent over the previous estimate of $1.8 billion.

[George from New England]

if NYC is dying from covid restrictions ... why is tunnel work needed.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Funeral trains?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!

[Olog-hai]

The estimated construction cost to rehabilitate the North River Tunnel is $2.2 billion, which is an increase of more than 22 percent over the previous estimate of $1.8 billion. …

North River Tunnels. There are two of them, both single track

JFTR, in 2021 dollars, the cost to the Pennsylvania Railroad to build the entire station and the six tunnels running to it was $3.4 billion.

[fruser1]

Can’t do a bridge? Lot cheaper.

[Olog-hai]

Not into Penn; too many buildings in the way, and the grades would be very steep. The open cut between Ninth and Tenth Avenues has been built over, too.

IIRC, the coast guard requires a bridge over the Hudson River to be 230 feet above the high water mark. That’s for accommodating cruise ships such as the Queen Mary II ans suchlike.

There have been several studies over the decades (even centuries) into building a rail bridge from New Jersey into Manhattan (one example is this remarkable unbuilt proposal to join the Long Island RR’s Atlantic Avenue Branch to the Central RR of NJ and the Baltimore and Ohio at the Battery, and another unbuilt one from Hoboken that the Pennsylvania RR refused to participate in due to an absurd financial burden being asked of them in return for their participation), but the politics even over that span of time have been utterly absurd, including restrictions on steam locomotive operation in Manhattan.

Also, the lower level of the George Washington Bridge was originally intended to host railroad tracks, just as the lower level of the Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco used to carry electric trolleys and interurban trains.

[Rumplemeyer]

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