Ongoing construction of a rail tunnel at the Hudson Yards redevelopment site on Manhattan’s West Side in New York. (Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP)

The crash of Amtrak Train 188 on Tuesday, which killed at least eight passengers, jolted the East Coast and the nation and refocused attention on the state of the nation’s infrastructure, which is crumbling.



While speed rather than infrastructure may have been the problem in Tuesday’s crash, Amtrak does face a long-term infrastructure crisis 100 miles north of Philadelphia: what to do with the North River Tunnels, which house two century-old two-way tracks under the Hudson River in New York.

The tunnels — which serve around 20 New Jersey Transit and three to four Amtrak trains per hour during peak service times — are a key chokepoint for the entire Northeast Corridor. They are the entry point for Amtrak trains going into New York, and the exit for those leaving the city.

Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman described the tunnels in February as “one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure in the New York Metro area — if not the nation.”

The tunnels are inspected daily, and engineers would shut them down if a leak or structural compromise were discovered. No one is talking about a threat like imminent collapse. But they are aging and have come under increasing strain in recent years.

The flooding of the tunnels in late October 2012 due to Hurricane Sandy put the integrity of the ancient tunnels up against a clock. Chlorides and sulfides from the seawater remain in the concrete, the embedded steel, the track and the electrical systems — all of which need to be replaced at some point in the next decade or two.

“The damage to the tunnel following Super Storm Sandy has changed the situation entirely. Instead of work being a long term goal, it is now an urgent necessity,” Amtrak said in a recent document .

A rusty metal wall in North Bergen, N.J., covering construction at the ARC Tunnel, which Gov. Chris Christie canceled. (Photo: Mel Evans/AP)



Story continues

No one knows exactly how long the North River Tunnels will remain operative, but Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman said in 2014 that 20 years is the maximum amount of time the pair of two-way tunnels could continue running without one of them being shut down for major repair.

To shut down one of the tunnels would mean running all New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains to the city through a single tunnel, which would cause a 75 percent reduction in service. Only six trains an hour would go through the tunnels then.

Amtrak and NJ Transit service would grind to a crawl, causing a massive displacement of commuters, who would overload subway, bus and ferry alternatives.

It would be an “economic catastrophe,” said Tom Wright, executive director of the Regional Plan Association.

“The economic impact of a single day of the Northeast Corridor being out is almost $100 million dollars on the economy,” said New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio this week.

The only way to avoid such a scenario is to build a new tunnel under the Hudson, divert much of the traffic to a pair of new two-way tracks that would go through the new tunnel, and then shut down one of the aging tracks to do a full renovation.

The biggest challenge to doing this is that politicians in New York, New Jersey and Washington have so far been unable to come together on a funding scheme to pay for what Amtrak is calling the Gateway Project, which they have estimated will cost $15 billion and take 10 to 15 years to complete.

“What’s shocking,” said Wright, “is it almost feels like they’re waiting for [a crisis] to happen.”

There is a twist to the story that involves a possible 2016 presidential contender: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Because in fact, construction was underway on a new tunnel under the Hudson that was scheduled to be finished in 2018.

But Christie canceled the project.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announces that he’s standing by his decision to kill the nation’s biggest public works project, a train tunnel connecting New Jersey to New York City. (Photo: Mel Evans/AP)

In the fall of 2010, exactly a century after the North River Tunnels were opened, Christie, who had been elected in a heavily Democratic state the year prior, was in the midst of a budget fight, seeking to make up an $11 billion shortfall in a $29 billion budget.

Christie argued that New Jersey taxpayers could not — by themselves without any help from New York City or New York state — shoulder the cost overruns on the tunnel project, which he said would be $2 billion to $5 billion beyond the $8.7 billion price tag.

Christie diverted state money — along with funds from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — from the tunnel project to more immediate state transportation projects. That move helped Christie avoid raising the state’s gas tax — which according to the Tax Foundation is the lowest in the nation at 14.5 cents a gallon — to replenish the transportation trust fund, and also averted toll hikes.

Democratic lawmakers who had fought to get funding for the tunnel project, known as Access to the Region’s Core, or the ARC Tunnel, were furious.

“The governor has put politics before performance, and it is the people of New Jersey who will pay the high price,” Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said at the time.

Lautenberg blasted Christie’s decision as “the biggest public policy blunder in New Jersey’s history.”

The issue has continued to dog Christie. Last August, while he was on vacation in California, Christie was sucked into a lengthy back and forth with New Jersey residents on Twitter angry over his cancellation of the ARC project.

“@GovChristie please ride to NYC and back to NJ on @NJTRANSIT for one week and then say this was a good idea,” wrote a user named Evan using the handle @Martinoe71.

Christie defended his decision, referring to the ARC as “an ill-advised project” and said that he was working “on 2 alternatives: Amtrak Gateway tunnel and/or extension of the 7 train.”

When one New Jersey resident said that Christie “knows the 7 extension is dead,” the governor shot back, “The 7 extension is not dead.”

Even Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a sometime ally of Christie’s, jumped into the thread to argue for more investment in rail.

The issue is still coming up during Christie’s regular town hall meetings. At a town hall in Kenilworth, N.J., on March 31, a man asked the governor why he had canceled the ARC project.

Christie replied that it was being funded only by money from New Jersey, the federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Christie said that New York state and New York City refused to agree to share the burden of cost overruns.

“It was like a game of chicken, you know. They didn’t think I’d cancel it. They didn’t know me,” Christie said.

Unlike in his Twitter spat last summer, however, Christie told the crowd that a tunnel under the Hudson was “a good idea.”

“We need it,” he said.

A rally in North Bergen, N.J., at the ARC Tunnel site where construction began but was suspended by Gov. Chris Christie. (Photo: Mel Evans/AP)

A week ago, a group of transportation experts convened a daylong meeting at the newly constructed One World Trade Center in Manhattan to discuss the future of transportation under the Hudson River, calling it the Trans-Hudson Summit.

Peter Rogoff, the federal Department of Transportation’s under secretary for policy, called on the political players in Albany, New York City and Trenton — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Christie — to take action.

“We need to figure out if we’re just going to wring our hands and watch the patient expire — going to that six trains an hour scenario — or whether we’re all going to take the more difficult political steps necessary to actually address the challenge, rectify the problem,” Rogoff said.

Rogoff made a pointed critique of Christie’s decision to cancel the ARC project.

“We are determined to look forward, not backward. But in understanding the urgency we face today, we also have to recognize that we did lose a whole decade,” he said.

“We need to take a look at who benefits, and who as a region should contribute,” he said. “But we need to recognize that we need to get on with it. We don’t have another decade to spend thinking about it and talking about it.”