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| Re: L line extension to New Jersey. (1467770) | |||
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Re: L line extension to New Jersey. |
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Posted by JAFO on Thu Mar 1 18:17:32 2018, in response to Re: L line extension to New Jersey., posted by Jackson Park B Train on Thu Mar 1 18:04:12 2018. The recent RPA document does not have much to say about PATH other than it exists and could be improved with some tweaksPATH to GCT could be a major improvement, rather than a 7 extension to NJ. This can be done by building a new pair of rail tunnels under the length of 42nd St including the spaces originally reserved a century ago for the H&M to use. I recall there was space reserved between the IRT lines level (and the 42nd St shuttle line ) and the deeper Steinway tubes level, if the H&M was able to tunnel that far. There were provisions made in GCT to connect with a PATH station near GCT to provide easy transfers between mainline trains and PATH. The new pair of tunnels with a terminal at GCT (or further east at 2nd Ave/UN ) can be run under 42nd St westwards towards NJ, with stations at Times Square, and 9th/10th Ave to connect with all the major subway lines before going under the Hudson River and the under Palisades, curving southwards to a western portal near the existing Amtrak NEC portals. Continuing southwards, the new line will run along the NEC and connect to Secacus for transfers with Amtrak and NJTransit, and continue further south to connect with the existing PATH lines to Newark for other transfers (such as the Newark Airport AirTrain) PATH can also be extended from Hoboken Terminal to Secacus by adding to the grand junction and running westwards under the Palisades . This provides another way for passengers to transfer using PATH to/from NYC – especially the East Side, or lower manhattan There can be a new station where this new 42nd st line crosses under the HBLR to give HBLR users access to Manhattan, although since HBLR already has a station at Hoboken terminal, that can be the transfer point to use the new 42nd st PATH route via Secacus or penn stn The existing 6th ave PATH line could be extended north from Penn Stn. to the 42nd st line terminal, providing a second route to this new terminus. This can provide a type of “circle line” from Hoboken: clockwise via Secaucus and the 42nd st line to Times Square, GCT, 42nd st terminus, then via 6th ave line to Penn and back to Hoboken; or counter-clockwise using the 6th ave line to the 42nd st terminal, and the 42nd st line back to Hoboken These new lines can be built without interrupting the use of PABT, and a new PABT can be built somewhere along the line in NJ to transfer the bus commuters to PATH or NJTransit rail systems, so that thousands of commuter buses don’t need to make the trans-Hudson journey twice every rush hour (in the AM trip the bus is full of commuters, then has a dead-head trip to layup in NJ, only to return empty for the PM commute) . With the commuter buses no longer needing to use the PABT in Manhattan, it could be rebuilt for the long–distance inter-city, inter-state and trans-border buses that still need to have a Manhattan stop Another thought is to re-activate the abandoned rail lines west of the Hudson in northern NJ and southern NY State to be used by PATH, connecting from NJ, tunnelling under the palisades and under the Hudson to a new 58th St line, with stations connecting to the major N/S subway line stations nearby. This could reduce (or eliminate entirely) the number of commuter buses needed between these west-of-Hudson counties and Manhattan using the PABT (or a new NJ PABT), and should provide a better commute I suspect that this could be done for less than the estimated $10 billion pricetag of just renovating the PABT. We saw the final price of the WTC PATH station and Oculus climb from $1 billion to over $4 billion, so will we be surprised when the PABT rebuild becomes yet another NYC $giga-$project that goes over budget and over schedule before completion? And after PABT is rebuilt at great expense, there will still be thousands of buses clogging the highways, tunnels and streets in both states during and between the rush hours, with effectively no improvement for the trans-Hudson traffic or commuters. Being realistic, this also can go over budget and over schedule like other recent PATH and MTA projects, but when completed it is new useful commuting infrastructure, and can likely be done in stages over decades. This seems better than spending over $Ten $Billion to maintain the commuting status quo at PABT. |
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