New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers NEWSLETTER REPORT April 20, 2012 Published Bi-Monthly PO Box 68, Chatham, N.J. 07928-0068 www.NJ-ARP.org Transaction Conference Reveals Major NEC Improvements On The Way NJ-ARP Morris Representative Jishnu Murkerji was express tracks. Possible confi guration of a two level one of several members attending this year’s annual station where the upper level has connectivity with the Transaction Conference in Atlantic City on April 11, 12, present station but cannot be extended eastwards, and 13. He has provided the following report. and a lower level that does not have connectivity with There were two separate sessions on Amtrak the current station but can be built out eastwards is Capital Projects on the Northeast Corridor. One was being considered. There are a dozen or so alternative on Gateway and Portal and the other one on the $450 confi gurations being studied and no fi nal determination million High Sped Rail (HSR) project. This is a brief set has been made yet. of jottings from the sessions and associated sidebar –Tier 1 PEIS (Programmatic Environmental Impact discussions. Of necessity there are a few NJ Transit Statement) for all of NEC is in progress and is expected issues intertwined, but on the whole it is an Amtrak run to be completed in 3 to 3.5 years. project, though 75% of its use is by NJT. Next speaker was Tom Schulze of NJ Transit: Gateway and Portal –Trans Hudson all modes ridership growing This was a joint NJT & Amtrak presentation. The again. fi rst presentation was by Drew Galloway of Amtrak: –Trans Hudson two-thirds of the ridership is by –Portal Bridge and Hudson River Tunnels have bus, one third by train. the highest mainline train density in the Western Hemisphere. –We have enough capacity to handle expected growth for the next 10 or so years, but beyond that we –Train miles in the Newark - New York segment will need additional capacity to be in place. have doubled since 1976 when Amtrak took over operations. –Acknowledged that realistically something like 7 to Secaucus will probably be necessary in addition to –Growth over next 40 years is projected to be tunnels to Penn Station for the long haul. between 45% and 70% depending on what baseline and growth scenario is used. –NJT is redoing forecasts with NYMTC and NJTPA to take into account the downturn to make sure that –The Sawtooth Bridge where the High Line crosses too much capacity is not being projected based on out the M&E near Hudson Tower carries over 400 trains of date projections and baselines. per day and is 105 years old is being held together at present by toothpicks and bailing wire. Galloway –Bus and Ferry are integral part of the mix. showed pictures of patched up fatigue cracks. This –FTA grant of $4.5 million is being used to build a bridge needs to be replaced and will be a major project bus terminal at Secaucus Jct. to off-load some buses involving shoe-fl ies during reconstruction. Proposal is from PABT. The GWB Bus Terminal is being revived for replacement with a 4-track bridge. by PANYNJ to enable diversion of some buses from –$15 million this year is being used for completing PABT to relieve congestion at PABT and Lincoln Tunnel. fi nal design of Portal North Bridge - a 50 feet high fi xed The XBL in the morning carries 700 buses per hour. span for two tracks consisting of three main linked No XBL in the afternoon due to logistical reasons. arch spans and approach viaducts. Design will be –Considering terminating more trains at Newark completed by the end of the year and it will be ready to recognizing the fact that Newark has signifi cant O/D be constructed. There is a $60 million TIGER request connecting to PATH and local buses. This to relieve for next year to begin construction. Portal North Plans congestion at NY-Penn while reducing overcrowding leaves the current Portal Bridge in place pending the west of Newark. construction of Portal South. –Gateway is projected to be in the 2025 time frame –Once Gateway gets going it will require funding in current capacity planning. at about a $3 billion per year level for 4 or so years. $450 million NEC High Speed Rail (HSR) –So far no technical fl aws or regulatory show This was another joint session between Amtrak and stoppers have been found in Gateway plans. NJT. The lead presenter was Al Fazio of Amtrak, who –There is an issue about the ability to build east used to work for the RiverLine during its construction. from the Block 780 station. If the station is at the same Now he is Chief Engineer of NEC HSR. NJ Transit level as the current station then it is not possible to dive down fast enough to get under the 6th Ave IND (Continued on page 4) PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE NJ-ARP DIRECTORS April is the cruelest month! and OFFICERS, 2012 Well here it is folks. April, that is. Springtime. And who else but T. S. Eliot said it best in NJ-ARP OFFICE/NORTH “The Wasteland” which begins, “April is the cruelest month… mixing memory and desire.” 1219 Garden Street Thoughts of what has been and what will yet be. Surely that. With the Christian holiday of Hoboken, NJ 07030 Easter generally celebrated in April, T.S. Eliot’s phraseology takes on increasing meaning. 201-798-6137, Ext. 2 Death and resurrection is the core meaning of the holiday. And to some of “us,” especially Douglas John Bowen, Director those who worked so long and hard to morph the NJ Transit-designed trans-Husdon rail crossing into something truly fi t for the ages, Eliot’s poem takes on an especially bittersweet NJ-ARP OFFICE/SOUTH meaning. Here for us, there’s certainly memory (past but not forgotten) and desire (for the 22 Hartford Road future), I’ll submit. Now I’ve been told (admonished actually) that all you out there in NJ- Medford, NJ 08055 ARP land have tired of hearing about the ARC project - sunk as it is thanks to Governor 609-654-5852 (eves only) Christie’s seat-of-the-pants rejection of that albatross in October 2010. Carol Ann Thomas, Director But hold on now, wait just a minute. Follow me on this one. One theory of history of ❇ ❇ ❇ ❇ which I am a life long and devoted adherent says that life is a series of sequential events. (That brings to mind a Gospel reading at Christmas time that traces the lineage of the House NJ-ARP E-MAIL CONTACT of David down from Abraham all the way to Joseph and Jesus of Nazareth.) On a more secular http://www.nj-arp.org/contact.html note (probably), without a Pearl Harbor there wouldn’t have been a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki NJ-ARP WEB SITE or, for that matter the great Pacifi c War (as it’s now called by many historians). But you get http://www.nj-arp.org the point here. Without an ARC, really a sunken ARC (RIP), there would never have been NJ-ARP LIVE the seed of a Gateway Project. Here again, as with a fl owering annual plant, something had Twitter @ NJ_ARP to die to be reborn. As I mentioned in Philadelphia at the NARP Mid-Atlantic meeting, at ❇ ❇ ❇ ❇ the very worst, all of the advocates and stakeholders have the opportunity to “get it right” this second time around and with the knowledge technically - and most assuredly politically - that we gained through unstinting participation in the ARC undertaking we intend to do Albert L. Papp, Jr., President just that. In a way of speaking, this time, we’re getting in on the proverbial ground fl oor 973-762-1831 BEFORE the 16 alignments that Amtrak has under study are released to the public. Jack May, Vice President 973-746-0757 Lester W. Wolff, Corresponding Secretary We are blissfully hopeful that such a “seat at the table” also extends to the NEC Tier 1 201-573-0146 (10a-4p only) PEIS (Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement) which is scheduled for completion Douglas John Bowen, Director in the next three to three and a half years. That didn’t really happen with ARC and even 212-620-7236 (days) though we were an active part of the Regional Citizens’ Liaison Committee (RCLC), the 201-798-6137 (eves) hard and nasty reality (feeling? perception?) was – that while we assembled periodically, it Jim Ciacciarelli, Director seemed only to hear “the word” from on high. We made our peripheral comments from the 856-988-5190 sidelines and ARC hurtled ever onward, like the unsinkable Titanic (100 years ago April Philip G. Craig, Director 14-15 this year; oh, there’s that April again), and met the same fate. It sunk; hit an iceberg 973-744-1765 named Christie, and had absolutely no chance of survival. But like that doomed, lauded, Jack McDougal, Director lamented, celebrated, memorialized and autopsied vessel, some ultimate good did emerge 908-638-8010 for the trans-Atlantic “blue ribbon” fl eet. All new ships were mandated to have adequate Carol Ann Thomas, Director lifeboats to evacuate passengers in the event the “unthinkable” ever happened again. (And, 856-642-3800 (days) as suspected, it did.) And so good things will occur for Gateway, thanks to the ARC sinking. 609-654-5852 (eves) Read on... ❇ ❇ ❇ ❇ At that Philadelphia NARP conclave, we were told that, under present engineering design criteria, advocates and other stakeholders would be faced with - and I quote - a Leonard Resto, Treasurer “Hobson’s Choice.” Puzzled? So was I until I heard what the “choice” was.