henry6As I've said, any MTA or PATH service under the North River makes sense for bus services only. NJT into Manhattan via Corridor or new tunnels is separate service.
I don't think I have suggested anything different from what you say, Henry. NJT, of course, wanted to build new tunnels to Manhattan for many years and that idea had strong bipartisan support in the Federal government and New York and New Jersey state governments. After about 20 years of planning the project began. And then Chris Christie used the power of his office to stop it. Those tunnels were and are important to New Jersey as a great many Jersey people work in Manhattan and the surrounding area and current transportation links are carrying the maximum number of people they can. They are also important to New Yorkers who might commute on the Port Jervis line and the Spring Valley line. Stopping the project has stopped any real increase in the number of Jersey people who have access to the economic opportunities New York City offers. That is what Chris Christie stopped.
Maybe despite the Christie decision some other ways of gaining access to the economic opportunities. An extension of the No. 7 line is one of those alternatives. Another is for Amtrak to build new tunnels. If either or both of those do happen it will be many, many years in the future. Unless and until happens we will just have to live with Governor Christie's decision to deny an expansion of the New York City job market to many many people.
Because of this thread I'm becoming more fearful or aware of the public misconceptions which can arise. An MTA or PATH extension to N. Bergen-Secaucus area has to be considered as something completely separate and apart from any digging under the North River that Amtrak and or NJT propose. They are two completely different projects for two completely different purposes serving several different markets. Bloomburg is the only politico who has mentioned the 7 train (others have been responses); I don't think anybody of importance in NJ has addressed it. And I think it has become quite clear here that it would be done to serve the bus commuters and some private auto drivers...NJT and Amtrak have a different clientele base who most likely wouldn't use the connection since they would actually not gain anything cost or timewise..
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henry6 They are two completely different projects for two completely different purposes serving several different markets.
Well, Henry, perhaps I am one of those self deluded members of the public.
I certainly agree with your comment about Amtrak. Amtrak has nothing to do with any subway extension.
But New Jersey Transit is different. If the No. 7 line were extended to New Jersey there would be a connection to it at the Secaucus station so it would have something to do with NJT trains. But there is a more important point. NJT also runs buses but it can't get any more buses into the Port Authority Terminal. With a No. 7 connection it could run more buses than it does now so more people could commute to New York City. That is an important part (but not the only important part) of a new bus terminal.
I agree with you that Mayor Bloomberg is the only person who has talked about this. Or at least the only person I know of.
But no one has officially proposed anything...you cannot say there will be a connection at Secaucus Jct! If bus connections are the point, then there are thousands of square acres to make the terminal for a rapid transit to bus connection. The Junction could be a location, but for buses it doesn't have to be. NJT train connection is not necessary as the same connections to subways can be made at NYP. The connection would not be cost or possibly time effective for NJT rail customers and NJT could lose income besides. But it could be a boom for auto drivers and bus companies if parking is affordable and available and the bus companies can save on labor costs, fuel, deadheading, tolls, etc. So I think it might be a good idea to reduce traffic into and in the City, reduce pollution--air and ground, and utilize the open spaces of the Meadows not already under concrete.
henry6But no one has officially proposed anything...you cannot say there will be a connection at Secaucus Jct!
You're right, Henry. Perhaps I would not be as focused on it if I didn't see Chris Christie's decision to destroy the effort to build new NJT tunnels as so wrongheaded.
But if it were built I do think it would save a lot of people a lot of waiting time on the Lincoln Tunnel approach. I don't see it as harming NJT as they would not loose train or bus riders. In fact it would allow them to add buses and gain riders. Actually, in an ideal world the thing to do would be to build a new bus terminal adjacent to the Secaucus Train Station so the No. 7 subway could end there and you could transfer from your bus to either the subway or any connecting train line.
But, as you say, no one has proposed any such thing.
John WR Actually, in an ideal world the thing to do would be to build a new bus terminal adjacent to the Secaucus Train Station so the No. 7 subway could end there and you could transfer from your bus to either the subway or any connecting train line. But, as you say, no one has proposed any such thing.
Actually, in an ideal world the thing to do would be to build a new bus terminal adjacent to the Secaucus Train Station so the No. 7 subway could end there and you could transfer from your bus to either the subway or any connecting train line.
Actually, what Henry proposed earlier (which is to put the 'first stop' on the 7 line tunnel at the park 'n ride lot at Rt 3 and Tonnelle) is an eminently better proposal. For one thing, any bus currently dedicated to the counterflow bus lane could now make the 'loop' and discharge directly to what is essentially the New York subway system in terms of seated ride, without any need to negotiate all the turns and nooks and crannies involved with getting from platform to subway at the PA 40th Street terminal. Very little additional infrastructure is needed for this trick, and it already serves park 'n ride auto commuters better than just about any other solution... look at all the road accesses.
Going to Secaucus as the 'last stop' only allows some potential reduction in traffic through the North River tunnels by allowing some of the rail commuters to connect directly to transit rather than go into Penn to make the connection. There is some question in my mind whether terminating some services at Secaucus with the presence of the transit access is akin to a NYW&B approach -- I do not think so, because the access to midtown is fairly direct, rather than entailing a long, long ride with multiple stops.
It might be possible to provide a dedicated busway to an integrated hub at Secaucus, but then you're discharging all those bus passengers (have you counted the number?) to just one line of transit... and already-crowded trains. A marginally better solution outbound... but nowhere near as sensible as putting the transfer on Rt. 3 as Henry indicated.
OvermodIt might be possible to provide a dedicated busway to an integrated hub at Secaucus, but then you're discharging all those bus passengers (have you counted the number?) to just one line of transit... and already-crowded trains. A marginally better solution outbound... but nowhere near as sensible as putting the transfer on Rt. 3 as Henry indicated.
You make an interesting observation. Of course had NJT's trans Hudson tunnels not be aborted the problem of limited train capacity would be going away. I agree that Henry's Rt. 3 plan is good. But it would be nice if all bus and rail transit could come together and the further you look into the future the nicer it is.
John WRBut it would be nice if all bus and rail transit could come together and the further you look into the future the nicer it is.
Not, I think, at the price you'd have to pay.
Overlap between bus and train service is very, very slight, and transfers at Secaucus -- ARC or Gateway tunnels alike -- will only provide greatly increased volume on precisely the short segment where the bottlenecks and heavy inbound infrastructure have to be placed. Outbound the situation is still relatively hopeless... do you expect commuters to stand to Secaucus and then walk downstairs and fribble around to get to their bus to, say, Lakewood? Much easier in that circumstance to just ride from 40th Street and skip the whole cattle crush. And I wouldn't blame them a bit...
It only makes sense to have an enormous transit hub where there's a destination for the passengers, or where mode transfer is a hard requirement. Secaucus is appropriate... now... because there are so many NJT services that are not dual-mode, or that could not be economically operated 'through' to Manhattan. Not appropriate for buses at ground level, and a fairly utter waste of money to build a whole new structure just to dock all those converging buses out in the swamp, er, Meadowlands so that their passengers can join the madding crowd for limited accommodations and a longer ride.
I would also note that as soon as there is PARTIAL relief of bus traffic, the remaining 'express buses' running in the counterflow lane will more easily provide through service, or buses not in the 'express' lane will now have a useful termination point close to the 'helix' for transfer to other local services, or for bus-to-bus route transfers outside Manhattan. I, for example, could not travel from Englewood to Princeton without having to go via Manhattan, nor could I get from EWR to North Jersey in any practical sense without doing so. That would change dramatically with a transfer point between subway, bus, and light rail at the Park 'n Ride location, and this alone might be reason enough to put the tunnel through Bergen Hill even without further 'extension'.
OvermodNot, I think, at the price you'd have to pay.
Well, you will be happy to know that neither NJT nor NJDOT seeks my opinion on these kinds of issues.
I'm dusting this off for a reason -- even with all the interest in the topic, nobody on here seems to have noticed that the final planning report (.pdf file) was issued.
I'm sure many of you will be interested to read this, and then comment further.
RME
There is not much to add to the report. Extending the Number 7 subway to the Lautenberg station would be complicated and expensive. The alternative is miles and miles and hours and hours of traffic backups at the Lincoln Tunnel.
I saw the report a while back...but am still not convinced it is the thing...partly because I grew up in North Jersey, partly because I live in upstate NY, partly because I think NJT should take NJ people into the city, partly because would like to see a run through to LIRR in Brooklyn or Long Island City, a more regionalized and rationalized use of commuter rail than rapid transit. Off hand, I think the rapid transit cost is greater than rail with better and broader benefits on a regional commuter rail system feeding a Manhattan rapid transit system. Perhaps there has to be an NJT line with stops at 9th-8th Ave, 6th Ave, and Lexington Ave to feed the MTA lines then interchange or transfers to MNRR and LIRR. .
henry6 I think NJT should take NJ people into the city,
I'm wondering why you believe this, Henry. After all, for people on the bus there can already be long backups at Route 4 when you hit the helix. And with the prediction of more people going into the city those back ups can only become longer and longer and longer.
John
Because I am a New Yorker...upstate New Yorker, but a New Yorker. I believe in separation of NYC and NY State as well as NJ and NY. If people chose to live in NJ, they should take care of themselves to get to and from work. But more importantly I believe in a rationalized regional rail system as I have touted so many times on these pages.
henry6 Because I am a New Yorker...upstate New Yorker, but a New Yorker. I believe in separation of NYC and NY State as well as NJ and NY. If people chose to live in NJ, they should take care of themselves to get to and from work. But more importantly I believe in a rationalized regional rail system as I have touted so many times on these pages.
Because I, too, am a New Yorker -- a Manhattan New Yorker -- I have a different view.
For one thing, unless something dramatic has changed, New Jerseyans who work in New York pay New York taxes... not just based on the income they earn there, but on all their income. They have earned the right to whatever participation of New York transit is involved in getting from Manhattan to the center of the Hudson, which the compacts of 1834 and 1921 agree is New York's responsibility.
Yes, New Jersey is responsible for the cost of everything in New Jersey, including a proper pro rata share of any 'joint' operation. But that framework has been in place since the PA expanded into ... well, into activities that led to its being renamed the 'Port Authority of New York and New Jersey' and its becoming the umbrella for all the little operating companies that handle other trans-Hudson facilities.
Why do you think this would be different because a nominally City agency (MTA) is the operating partner rather than an entity like MNCR?
(And by the way, John, the backup would indeed be long if New Jerseyans coming down Route 4 experienced a delay at the helix. Because Route 4 doesn't go within about nine miles of the Lincoln Tunnel... )
But I have to limit my taxes in Broome County and other upstate counties and towns instead of sending too much to NYC to support itself. NJ people who work in NY should pay their "fare" share instead of me.
The statement has been made that buses handle the majority of NJ commuters into Manhattan, and the assumption was made that this was via Lincoln Tunnel to the Port Authority Terminal. But buses also use the George Washington Bridge to the Washington Heights Terminal, the majority of these then using the A train to the Manhattan busines district or to other points souith of Washington Herights. And does the rail total include those using PATH? There are four PATH tracks into Manhattan from NJ and only two NJT tracks, the latter shared with Amtrak. Then there are both bus and rail passengers that use the ferries, mostly from Hoboken. And the Port Authority Terminal does handle intercity buses as well as commuter buses, and some come from Upstate NY and use the Major Degan Expressway in the Bronx and then Manhattan Avenues to access the PATerm. Does anyone have the actual figures for all these different lanes? And can west-of Hudson NY State commuters be separated from NJ commuters in these figures?
It certainly is a complex situation compared with figures on commuters from Westchester, Connecticut, and Long Island. These three are, of course, mostly rail.
Are there NJ commutgers that commute to Staten Island and use the St. George ferries?
Finally, in answer to Henry, if the 7 went to NJ, undoubtadly a higher fare would be charged at the turnstiles in NJ and the extra fare would be paid on a pay-leave basis for those existing. Thus, NJ riders would not be subsidized by NY taxpayers.
Agree, Dave...with your facts and your questions. You don't mention the Holland Tunnel which handles a lot of buses to Wall St., some turning back to NJ while other work up to PAT or other spots. And there is the Staten Island Ferry and Verrazano Bridge access...even peak hour buses from Bayonne to SI for SIRR or bus to St. George and the ferry or bus to Brooklyn and the R train; three bridges from NJ to SI feeding the Verrazano, too. As for NJ commuters paying extra fare for the 7 train, the building of the extension will still be on my tax bill.
daveklepper The statement has been made that buses handle the majority of NJ commuters into Manhattan, and the assumption was made that this was via Lincoln Tunnel to the Port Authority Terminal.
The statement has been made that buses handle the majority of NJ commuters into Manhattan, and the assumption was made that this was via Lincoln Tunnel to the Port Authority Terminal.
The only assumption that was made is that the 'first stop' on the 7 line extension would include large-scale facilities to divert traffic that would otherwise have to go through the Lincoln Tunnel (buses mainly to the PA bus terminal, cars anywhere south of where it would make more sense to go GWB and then Harlem/East river Drive or West Side Highway).
A further, less demanding assumption is that an extension of the 7 line as far as Allied Junction would allow passengers to divert 'early' from a variety of suburban trains, or drop-off buses, to a one-seat (and much more chance of a guaranteed sit-down, too!) subway connection. It does not take a degree in mathematics to realize this may decrease both the volume of traffic that has to pass through the North River tunnels and the volume of traffic that would otherwise clog up the IRT 7th Avenue or IND 8th Avenue northbound lines to reach the 7 line or Shuttle to go to the East Side. The former gives some breathing room until Amtrak's Gateway and Portal Bridge improvements can be made, or opens up at least the possibility of some additional trains from New Jersey or 'Port Jervis' NY points that could go Midtown Direct instead of terminating in the swamp... er, Meadowlands.
See light rail point below.
... buses also use the George Washington Bridge to the Washington Heights Terminal, the majority of these then using the A train to the Manhattan business district or to other points south of Washington Heights.
5 million a year, vs. 58 million at the PA terminal. Not exactly a compelling percentage. Out of the way... and across an excessively overcrowded [this is not redundant!] transportation artery... which the Lincoln and Holland tunnels are emphatically NOT... but useful if you can figure a way to use it wisely.
We in Englewood have been waiting for the A train extension over the Bridge since... well, since the '20s. There is STILL space between the lower deck lanes (and the structural engineering has been done; I've seen it) for rail over the Bridge; there might be some fun involved in transition especially at the Fort Lee end, and the situation is infinitely more complicated than the old route-it-down-the-Palisades-parallel-to-Route-4 option ... but not insoluble. And a very logical (to me, anyway) implementation of this option is to use the Light Rail going into Englewood ... but now not Tenafly ... as the system which would use the Bridge trackage. (Even terminating within the bus facility gets the job of reducing vehicle traffic over the Bridge massively reduced, and as Dave says, almost all the traffic goes south on the A line. (I spent my time with the miserable ride down into the hole at 168th St so I could get to Columbia without having to climb the Morningside hill, but at least it was free, and the IRT station was scenic!)
And does the rail total include those using PATH? There are four PATH tracks into Manhattan from NJ...
PA figures for Journal Square, Lord knows if they reflect 'through' passengers on PATH, but certainly would reflect the NJ traffic to NY) have about 8 million pax maximum, this including the connecting bus services. I would not look to massive capacity improvements on PATH, CBTC or no CBTC, any time soon. (On the other hand, it's at least theoretically possible to join the 7 line extension and Tunnel to at least a facilitated 'cross-platform' connection with the PATH line at 33rd St., as we were discussing in this thread a few months ago...)
Then there are both bus and rail passengers that use the ferries, mostly from Hoboken.
Do you have actual numbers showing that large numbers of commuters who live particularly far away actually use these things? My guess is that even with the Light Rail there are severe restrictions on how far you can enhance capacity. (I looked into the logistics in the early '70s, before Mr. Imperatore (I went to school with his daughter India) actually started things up, and even with the maximum practical number of boats, the effective throughput between 'destination pairs' was minuscule.)
And the Port Authority Terminal does handle intercity buses as well as commuter buses, and some come from Upstate NY and use the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx and then Manhattan Avenues to access the PATerm.
I cannot imagine such a thing actually being considered during rush hour. Even if there were a point, the bus would take hours to get through. I believe you will find there is, in fact, some common sense at work, and those intercity buses that might arrive from upstate during peak hours go into the GWB Station from the north or counterflow from the east, and not anywhere near ... Manhattan Avenue from the Deegan to get to 40th Street on the West Side? In rush hour? Give me some of what you're drinkin'!
Does anyone have the actual figures for all these different lanes?
Well, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, for one. (I believe they've only comparatively recently started keeping full records -- didn't we have a post or two about this? -- but they know.
And can west-of Hudson NY State commuters be separated from NJ commuters in these figures?
This is more complicated. I'm sure you could do this for the EZPass people. You might need some fancy machine-vision software analysis to recognize how many cars from NYS points are going south to the metropolitan area -- and by the time you get up to Port Jervis country, you're looking at the other Hudson crossings and joining the traffic from the general north and east coming down the pre-Deegan Thruway and the parkways... cue the bridge-cams. (Note that this will implicitly be involved with the Westchester, etc. figures...)
I don't really know how many people from New York State come down roads like 17 or 9W or the Palisades Parkway to get into New York, but I would expect almost all of them either to go over the GWB or to find a park 'n ride or other mode somewhere else. There are relatively large lots in Fort Lee, and they fill up early every weekday -- but mostly with NJ license plates.
Are there NJ commuters that commute to Staten Island and use the St. George ferries?
I'm sure there are some, but there can't be many. I think the 'take rate' would be much higher if there were a rail connection directly across the Arthur Kill and down the SIRT to St. George, but there we run into that same old MTA/NJ separation-of-powers argument.
Finally, in answer to Henry, if the 7 went to NJ, undoubtadly a higher fare would be charged at the turnstiles in NJ and the extra fare would be paid on a pay-leave basis for those existing.
You can bet your bottom dollar there will be a 'surcharge' for the portion of the ride in New Jersey. Probably with some kind of option to exit the train in the Yards to avoid paying a full MTA fare, although I'm still musing about this. But I do NOT want any part of whatever you were drinking that made you suggest pay-as-you-leave for evening rush outbound. Verification machines are stupid enough. Pay as you leave (and stop if you can't?) verges on the suicidal. I suspect the only way you could make that work would be for all riders to have RFID passes tied to a known funding source, and 'bill their accounts' as they go.
ALL THOUGH THIS PROBABLY WOULD NOT WORK ;;; ----
Are the proposed gateway and #7 tunnels close enough together so one larger tunnel could be bored to carry the 4 tracks? That would be similar to the LIRR and subway tunnel to Gand Central ?
That's not a wacky question, but...
Gateway will be on the south side of the existing North River tunnels, which means even further south of the Rt. 3 approach to the 'helix', the existing park 'n ride lots, etc. I also suspect the Gateway easement will be considerably deep at that point (to minimize grade in the tunnels) so you'd need a long, circuitous approach track to get up to anything involving Tonnelle Avenue.
Likewise, if there is a stop close to the river, to access the existing 'light rail' on that side of the Palisades (it doesn't cross through the ex-Suskie Palisade Tunnel until further north) you'd have to have platform infrastructure for a couple of the joint tracks, while there would be none for the HSR.
The whole 7 line tunnel approach is predicated on it being cheaper to use smaller transit-equipment clearances, curve radii, and grade climbing ability hen building the tunnel. Four-tracking Gateway will not save you very much money as the required bore for a TBM would be the outside radius of a 'cloverleaf', with minimal usefulness for the little sections of the resulting cylinder outside the four track paths.
My assumption is that the 7 line tunnel would be assembled from precast sections a la BART. Much more complexity involved in either over/under fabrication (to cut down on trenching width) or four-tracks-abreast *to Gateway class 9 or whatever curve standards* even if it were cheaper to build Gateway by that method rather than deep TBM.
The time frames are very different. Gateway is not likely to be complete until the 2020s. The 7 line tunnel would be in the general timeframe for the stillborn ARC project -- shorter, in fact, because much less construction complexity would be involved.
Overmod: I thought that the LIRR tunnel to GCT was an over & under type ? that would cut down on TBM diameter ?
Overmod(And by the way, John, the backup would indeed be long if New Jerseyans coming down Route 4 experienced a delay at the helix. Because Route 4 doesn't go within about nine miles of the Lincoln Tunnel... )
Of course you are correct, Bob. Route 4 connects with the George Washington Bridge. Route 3 connects with the Lincoln Tunnel and leads into the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
But I hope you will excuse me for being taken by surprise at the idea that all of the people who now ride NJT trains to Manhattan could simply be put on buses and sent into the city. This is especially true if you consider not only the people who go directly to New York Penn Station but also those who go to Newark and change to the PATH and those who go to Hoboken and change to the PATH. To be frank, I don't know how to begin to consider such an idea. During the rush hour there would be no place to put all those buses. For about 20 years I worked in Hudson County including Hoboken and Weehawken. I can't remember how many times I saw traffic backed up on the helix and down route 3 but it was a lot.
OvermodBut I do NOT want any part of whatever you were drinking that made you suggest pay-as-you-leave for evening rush outbound. Verification machines are stupid enough. Pay as you leave (and stop if you can't?) verges on the suicidal. I suspect the only way you could make that work would be for all riders to have RFID passes tied to a known funding source, and 'bill their accounts' as they go.
Did you ever change from a Northeast Corridor Train to a Port Jervis Train? To pay as you leave the NEC train you put your ticket in the turn style. It is returned and you use it again on the train. It works quite well.
henry6As for NJ commuters paying extra fare for the 7 train, the building of the extension will still be on my tax bill.
And you know whose fault that is, Henry? DeWitt Clinton's that who. He taxed you southern tier guys to build the Erie Canal and ever since then it has gone from bad to worse. The Erie Canal is still going strong but you don't even have the Erie Railroad any more.
Dear Lord, no, I'm not suggesting more buses. I was only pointing out that TECHNICALLY you could achieve comparable passenger density in 'one highway lane' than in typical rail.
Unless there is a dedicated bus lane *through the tunnel* to match the capacity of the dedicated line through the helix, you will of course be limited by the speed with which buses can negotiate the bottleneck between the toll plaza 'slot' at the end of the dedicated lane and the actual tunnel portals. This used to be a fun thing to watch from the 'right seat' on a bus, as various flavors of Jersey driver would jockey for momentary advantage between the buses coming off the counterflow lane.
There is an implicit economy in a train's being able to board and discharge from one long parallel platform; buses need angle platforms to accomplish the same thing, and of course a reverse move (into traffic) is required to clear each one. On the other hand, if buses were given the same kind of door access as commuter cars, each angle platform can be cleared as soon as loading/unloading is complete, rather than having to wait the effective headway time (last passenger off that last car, then accelerate the train off the platform with 'safety' following distance, then get the whole following train along the platform and stopped) before any more passengers at all can be accommodated.
There was never any question of 'putting all the rail passengers on buses and sending them into the city' in actual practice, and of course there could not be. Buses could not replace PATH in any way, shape, or form without spending enormous sums of money. In the 'old days' infrastructure improvements on the required scale could have been justified because they would be useful to general off-peak automobile drivers too. but this is less true, or not true, of a dedicated busway or BRT scheme. The situation is even more pronounced for service through the North River Tunnels.
On the other hand, scaling passenger-only rail to rush-hour proportion is a very expensive proposition with very little alternative use during off-peak times. That has been one of the principal bugbears for suburban *profitability* for many years now. If a given amount of money is spent on trains, and there is no use for many of those trains outside of a total six-hour window, you get less bang for the buck than if you have something that can be effectively retasked to a variety of alternative services or routes when not in peak use. (Which was one of GM's advertising points for bus service as early as the '50s).
For about 20 years I was driving more or less regularly into the New York metropolitan area. This was out of necessity -- there was simply no effective way to get from Englewood to 70th and York in time for surgery in the morning. The interesting thing was how the cumulative delays affected things. If you got to the GWB before 6am, the trip took about 17 minutes. By 6:05, the wait at the Bridge was about 5 minutes, and the trip time ballooned to nearly an hour. By 6:15 it was difficult to be there before 8-something. (And leaving at 9 it was back close to 17 minutes again).
A very sizeable traffic in trans-Hudson commuters boards at Bridge Plaza, where (sensibly!) most of the buses coming across the Bridge can stop, and any passenger can take any route the 'last mile'. I don't have any numbers for what proportion of ridership this represents, but the wait time is of course far less than would be the case for any single bus route.
Why there is not even one directional-flow bus lane on the GWB has been a mystery to me long before I saw the blueprints for the Martha Washington Bridge (so labeled on at least some PA documents, although in the present age of political correctness this might have been changed) and realized how easily it could be run in the space between lanes on that lower deck. Not so easy, as I mentioned before, is how large numbers of buses from different directions would converge on this lane going westbound (the situation on the New York side, of course, is comparatively straightforward). The catch, of course, is the magnitude of bus traffic to GWB as opposed to the counts for 40th St. -- I did expect to see this go up dramatically with NY state originating passengers once 287 was completed between 80 and the state line, and perhaps it has, but the traffic into 40th St. still dwarfs what goes into GWB, and I am not surprised.
I can never remember a time when the helix wasn't occupied and spilling over down Route 3 during rush hour... and believe me, it was worse before the counterflow bus lane was introduced! My general rule was to avoid Rt. 3 and the Lincoln Tunnel if speed into the city was expected, and in fact to take the Western extension if going south at that time (even though I enjoyed watching trains on the NYCR from the Eastern extension) as it wasn't unusual for traffic (bound for the helix) to back up past that exit onto the Turnpike. I can't imagine the situation has gotten any better in the years since.
I'll throw my 2 cents worth in.
1.This has been pretty lively from going back over the thread.
2.And a few comments.
To start the upriver toll crossings of the Hudson River, the Tappan Zee, Newburg Beacon are both New York State Thruway crossings. (As is I-84 from the Hudson to Pennsylvania, I do not remember about the other way to Connecticut).
Looking briefly at the Parsons Brinkerhoff report going to FRL makes a fair amount of sense if you look at how much open space is available for development. Things like a parking garage. It is right off the NJ Turnpike. Expanded bus facilities. A multimodal facility.
The only thing I could see you could not do there easily is a ferry dock.(yes I know the Hackensack River is not that far away) .
One of the reasons NYCTA was put under the MTA(a state of NY function) was to get out from under some of the New York state constitution limitations on borrowing. If a municipality exceeds certain limits it has to go to the state legislature for authority. This was one of the hurdles that had to be overcome when the IND was built. When New York City goes to Albany for major expansions it gets to be a real political football.
Anyway as I said my worth.
Thx IGN
Th
John WR henry6As for NJ commuters paying extra fare for the 7 train, the building of the extension will still be on my tax bill. And you know whose fault that is, Henry? DeWitt Clinton's that who. He taxed you southern tier guys to build the Erie Canal and ever since then it has gone from bad to worse. The Erie Canal is still going strong but you don't even have the Erie Railroad any more. John
There was no one in the Southern Tier back then...just beavers and trout! Virtually. Upstate NY suffers because NYC has to get all kinds of permissions, charters, money, from Albany to do something..;almost anything and everythng... putting a burden, tax wise and otherwise, on those who do not live within the boundaries of the City. It gets harder and harder for them to sell to us, and for us to swallow, the line that we must pay NYC's bills because NYC wags the state, that what is good for NYC is good for the State, that we benefit from whatever money we give to NYC. There is an ever widening gap, politically, socially, and economically, between upstate and downstate. And our taking on the burden of paying for New Jersey's commute in and out of NYC is one of those dividing points. Even downstate NY'ers is hard for us to swallow.
blue streak 1 ALL THOUGH THIS PROBABLY WOULD NOT WORK ;;; ---- Are the proposed gateway and #7 tunnels close enough together so one larger tunnel could be bored to carry the 4 tracks? That would be similar to the LIRR and subway tunnel to Gand Central ?
After the Sandy storm serge, half the Amtrak tunnels on each side of Manhattan were flooded, and the other half were able to be put back in service quickly. Maybe ATK would see an advantage to staying with separate single track tunnels in future construction.
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