Gateway Project/New York Penn Station capacity improvement

[jis]

The $6 Billion RRIF Loan is likely the debt service for the Port Authority of NY and NJ, NJ Transit, New Jersey, and New York.

Are you sure about that or are you just pulling it out of the nether regions? Can yo provide any citation in support of this odd theory? Although I must admit that a loan to pay off a loan does sound like what the financial wizards of the Corzine and Port Authority mindset would come up with as a plan Why worry about actually paying off the last loan if we can postpone the day of reckoning until after or time

This includes both the Portal Bridge (which the Port Authority said in October should cost a little more than $1.5 Billion) and the Hudson Tunnel Project.

Only thing being handled right now are the Portal North, which has a separate funding stream and the pair of tunnels plus the repair of the existing tunnels - timeframe for completion of the latter is 2029. The rest of Gateway is on the back burner for now. Or so says the guys managing the project at the last public review. Do you know something that they even don not know or are not disclosing?

I am basing this on information shared by two gentlemen who attended the public review meeting and reported on that at the NJ-ARP Board meeting on Saturday in Chatham NJ, where I was present.

Remember, Gateway Phase 1 is likely to receive a massive New Starts Grant--which will likely include some CMAQ funds as well (which was what originally happened with ARC).

Unless the new administration changes the rules of the game the feds are on the hook for half the total amount for the tunnel. No one knows whether it will be New Start grants or whatever else. Only the amount is roughly known, the mechanism or budget lines are not known at this time. It will be routed through FTA in all likelihood, but it could be just a targeted single grant over multiple years. And the ground rules may have changed completely after the election.

Given the current FTA New Start scoring rules this project may not make the cut. ARC had great difficulty making the cut which caused them to add the bell mouths for connecting the CSX River Line and North Branch into the tunnel in the future, to make up the necessary utility numbers to cover the huge cost. And those rules are unlikely to change just for one project. This is why it is premature to state categorically that New Start will be involved. Of course, everything is now up in the air. The new administration may even insist that all funding will have to be to a public private partnership with the private party paying into it using some mechanism excusing taxation on the private party. So fasten your seat-belts and hang on until the dust settles. After all that is the mechanism that has been mooted by the President elect for his yuuge $1 Trillion infrastructure investment.

Incidentally Drew Galloway, who was at Amtrak NEC Capital Programs has left Amtrak and showed up at the meeting representing Parsons. He is working on the tunnel from Parsons.

As is now known for sure, that NJTransit is the lead agency for the Tunnel project, which consists of just the tunnels, and nothing else, not even an inch of new tracks west of Secaucus apparently, or any new platforms at Secaucus. The main goal of the project is to complete two tunnels between Bergen interlocking and Penn Station so that the two old tunnels can be taken out of service for rehabilitation. The rest comes after that work is at least well on its way.

 

[CraigDK]

Only thing being handled right now are the Portal North, which has a separate funding stream and the pair of tunnels plus the repair of the existing tunnels - timeframe for completion of the latter is 2029. The rest of Gateway is on the back burner for now. Or so says the guys managing the project at the last public review.

And that is consistent with the Port Authority board meeting video.

No one knows whether it will be New Start grants or whatever else. Only the amount is roughly known, the mechanism or budget lines are not known at this time.

The last I saw on the Portal Bridge North was around $1.3B and the Hudson Tunnel Project was $10B. Has there been a newer (and more precise) cost estimate given for either?

I have no idea what program the federal share may come from... Based on the earlier announcements that NY & NJ agreed to pay half the tunnel project cost, I theorized (and I have been wrong in the past) that the RRIF loan discussed in the Port Authority video will cover the states share. How the states plan on paying that loan back is an unknown.

Given the amount discussed in the video (~$6B) and the prior estimate and share breakdown for the tunnel project, I would be tempted to assume that the remainder might be directed at Portal North (unless the estimate on the tunnels has risen). Has there ever been a commitment on who (and how much) would fund the Portal North?

Incidentally Drew Galloway, who was at Amtrak NEC Capital Programs has left Amtrak and showed up at the meeting representing Parsons. He is working on the tunnel from Parsons.

That doesn't sound to surprising.

 

[jis]

I have a strong suspicion that eventually the Governors of NJ and NY will fall back on their piggy-bank and under one of the typical deals of tit for tat get the PA to bear significant part of the state's costs in exchange for allowing the PA to milk the citizens a bit more through additional tolling of various interstate river crossings. That's the sort of place where the rubber will meet the road. They might also institute a ticket tax on all rail tickets involving the use of the tunnel to extract some money from there. So expect to see costs of tickets to enter New York from the west/south to go up a bit, like say 5 percent or so, as things get rolling.Part of the RRIF payback may be out of tax on ticket prices, unfortunately, given the sorry state of the debt burden at both NY and NJ State.

 

[Andrew]

I have a strong suspicion that eventually the Governors of NJ and NY will fall back on their piggy-bank and under one of the typical deals of tit for tat get the PA to bear significant part of the state's costs in exchange for allowing the PA to milk the citizens a bit more through additional tolling of various interstate river crossings. That's the sort of place where the rubber will meet the road. They might also institute a ticket tax on all rail tickets involving the use of the tunnel to extract some money from there. So expect to see costs of tickets to enter New York from the west/south to go up a bit, like say 5 percent or so, as things get rolling.Part of the RRIF payback may be out of tax on ticket prices, unfortunately, given the sorry state of the debt burden at both NY and NJ State.

I thought that New Jersey would partially chip in through the new (and larger) Transportation Trust Fund?

I doubt that the Port Authority would pay for the entire $6 Billion loan!

 

[jis]

I thought that New Jersey would partially chip in through the new (and larger) Transportation Trust Fund?

For the tunnel. Nope. There is way too much state of good repair work that is sitting around deferred for there to be anything left for the tunnel from the TTF.

Remember TTF is not just rail, it is also buses and road repair and stuff. Given a choice between repairing roads in NJ and bulding a tunnel to New York, guess what most citizens in NJ would opt for.

Right now one of the big battles is about the PA proposed bug new bus terminal backed by the Bergen County folks in NJ that is opposed by NJ rail advocates and by New York City folks. There is $10 billion that PA wants to **** away on a piece of nonsense pushed by Christie appointees, that will continue to be a pissing contest for the foreseeable future, while nothing gets done with the $10 billion which could be spent gainfully elsewhere..

If one is to believe what Congress said this year, the RRIF loan covers the federal portion. The states have to find their portion, and i9n addition the project planners have to figure out how to pay back the RRIF loan.. Congress is unlikely to appropriate that kind of money in the absence of significant private contribution given the way Trump apparently wants to structure the yuuuge infrastructure budget, and Ryan and company have already made it quite clear that something else will have to give to make it a pay as you go thing for the federal government. Meanwhile all the neocons have come out of the woodworks back into all the national defense and security posts. So it is anyone's guess what kind of money will get drained away there. Wait and watch is all one can do right now.

I would strongly recommend that we cease and desist from baseless dreaming about additional federal funding beyond the RRIF loan, and wait to see what the new administration actually intends to do. I take it as a given that all old deemed agreements are now up for renegotiation.

 

[Andrew]

I thought that New Jersey would partially chip in through the new (and larger) Transportation Trust Fund?

For the tunnel. Nope. There is way too much state of good repair work that is sitting around deferred for there to be anything left for the tunnel from the TTF.

Remember TTF is not just rail, it is also buses and road repair and stuff. Given a choice between repairing roads in NJ and bulding a tunnel to New York, guess what most citizens in NJ would opt for.

Right now one of the big battles is about the PA proposed bug new bus terminal backed by the Bergen County folks in NJ that is opposed by NJ rail advocates and by New York City folks. There is $10 billion that PA wants to **** away on a piece of nonsense pushed by Christie appointees, that will continue to be a pissing contest for the foreseeable future, while nothing gets done with the $10 billion which could be spent gainfully elsewhere..

If one is to believe what Congress said this year, the RRIF loan covers the federal portion. The states have to find their portion, and i9n addition the project planners have to figure out how to pay back the RRIF loan.. Congress is unlikely to appropriate that kind of money in the absence of significant private contribution given the way Trump apparently wants to structure the yuuuge infrastructure budget, and Ryan and company have already made it quite clear that something else will have to give to make it a pay as you go thing for the federal government. Meanwhile all the neocons have come out of the woodworks back into all the national defense and security posts. So it is anyone's guess what kind of money will get drained away there. Wait and watch is all one can do right now.

I would strongly recommend that we cease and desist from baseless dreaming about additional federal funding beyond the RRIF loan, and wait to see what the new administration actually intends to do. I take it as a given that all old deemed agreements are now up for renegotiation.

But that $6 Billion RRIF Emerging Project Agreement was announced after Trump won the election.

I was under the impression that debt service would be deferred until after the new tunnel is placed into service. This means that the new TTF would actually not fund debt service for the Hudson Tunnel Project.

 

[jis]

Trump administration begins in January. Please don't tell me you did not know that.

TTF cannot be used for debt service. So scratch that idea before or after the debt payments come due. Debt payments will be made from earnings from the collateral, read user fees of some sort. And as I have pointed out, the TTF will run out in eight years again and it is already over committed.

 

[Andrew]

Trump administration begins in January. Please don't tell me you did not know that.

TTF cannot be used for debt service. So scratch that idea before or after the debt payments come due. Debt payments will be made from earnings from the collateral, read user fees of some sort. And as I have pointed out, the TTF will run out in eight years again and it is already over committed.

Are you saying that you are now concerned that Gateway won't happen?

I was under the impression that a ton of progress has been in the last year.

 

[jis]

Are you saying Gateway won't happen? Show me where I said that and I will eat a crow.

It is a giant step from a statement that the funding mechanisms will need to be renegotiated, to saying "Gateway won;t happen".

It is now entirely conceivable that Congress will review all agreements reached within 60 days before inauguration and nix select ones that they choose to nix. Everything is up in the air for now. That is all I am saying. This means that talking about CMAQ and FTA New Start and what not is premature. The RRIF Loan agreement will hopefully survive since it does not have to be scored as a new negative in the budget. And that will pay the federal part of the promised fund even if no other appropriation happens. but that means NJ and NY will have to find the other half, or the balance to fund the tunnel.

We already know that the agreement reached on the CR to fund Amtrak is gone. There will be a single quarter CR with no reallocation of funds between NEC and LD. Then there will be a new appropriation for the balance of the year in the shape that the new administration and the Republicans hammer out. The Democrats will be able to play some interference fortunately. So NARP is working hard to get on board with the new Republican leadership to see what can be rescued. It is all back to square one from all the progress that was made last year regarding Amtrak.

Gateway is slightly different, and it might get a somewhat better treatment because there are interests to trade between Wicker (Gulf Coast Service) and Booker (NEC and Gateway), and Rodney F, my old representative from NJ, is the new Appropriations boss on the House side. He is the one that has generally always voted for Amtrak and was also instrumental in getting the Lackawanna Cutoff off the ground. Also fortunately Thune (R-SD) the Transportation Chair in Senate is not inimical to Amtrak and the ranking member on the Democratic side - my current Senator - Nelson is supportive of Amtrak and even NEC. So there is some hope. But then again both Amtrak and Gateway are mere minnows compared to the big fish that people want to fry, so they can get lost in the shuffle.

 

[jis]

BTW, here is the $10 billion pissing contest about the new bus terminal that I mentioned:

http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/governor/2016/11/20/nj-ny-escalate-port-authority-bus-terminal-feud/94166176/

 

[Andrew]

Jis,

Are you saying that new legislation that allows Amtrak to reinvest their NEC revenue back into the Northeast Corridor will have to get reintroduced since a new Congress and Administration is starting in January?!

I was under the impression that the FAST Act enabled Amtrak to reinvest their NEC revenues back into the NEC every year through at least 2020...

 

[jis]

FAST Act is an Authorization. The CR under consideration now, which is a short term CR does not have the FAST Act apportionment in the appropriation for Amtrak. It has the old apportionment between LD and NEC. Hence there will be large transfer of funds from NEC to LD unless most of LD is to be shut down, which won't happen.

An attempt was made before the election to agree on a longer term CR with the new apportionment thrown in. But after the election that is dead.

So now the same funding levels as the previous year will continue with the same apportionment for the first three months. By then supposedly the new administration will get a new appropriation in place reflecting their new priorities. This may or may not be good for Amtrak. your guess is as good as mine at this point. But it will reflect what the allocations apportionment should be according to the Trump administration, negotiated through the Congress. It may or may not follow the FAST Act Authorizations. For Amtrak. Historically, Congress has never followed Authorizations to decide on Appropriations for Amtrak. It has typically been less, sometimes substantially less.

 

[neroden]

Let me get this clear, though: the new CR still has the new "NEC/National Network" structure, not the old "Capital Budget / Operating Budget" structure? I remember NARP was fighting to get that done so that Amtrak didn't have to do its books two different ways.

 

[jis]

Let me get this clear, though: the new CR still has the new "NEC/National Network" structure, not the old "Capital Budget / Operating Budget" structure? I remember NARP was fighting to get that done so that Amtrak didn't have to do its books two different ways.

No. The new new 3 month CR has dropped all that. This was the gist of the latest missive from NARP.. It is a simple CR so far saying, just carry on as before with same level of funding duly prorated for three months.

They are trying to get that language back in there, but time is short and things too unsettled. They did not sound very hopeful.

 

[Andrew]

Also, you folks can click on the link below, and go to Port Authority Board Meeting Press Conference from 11/17/16. Within that video, in the first two minutes, is a brief and concise summary of all the progress that has been made on Gateway Phase 1-- which includes the new Portal Bridge, and the Hudson Tunnel Project, which includes three major parts:

1. The Hudson Yards Tunnel Box Extension within Manhattan

2. The new twin tubes from New Jersey into Midtown, Manhattan and

3. The complete rehabilitation and modernization of the existing North River Tunnels.

http://corpinfo.panynj.gov/pages/board-committee-meeting-videos/

 

[neroden]

Let me get this clear, though: the new CR still has the new "NEC/National Network" structure, not the old "Capital Budget / Operating Budget" structure? I remember NARP was fighting to get that done so that Amtrak didn't have to do its books two different ways.

No. The new new 3 month CR has dropped all that. This was the gist of the latest missive from NARP.. It is a simple CR so far saying, just carry on as before with same level of funding duly prorated for three months.

OK, so it's back to capital budget / operating budget? That means Amtrak shows a substantial operating surplus over budget, *again*, and transfers the excess to the capital budget. However, without the hamstringing of the national network / NEC distinction, Amtrak is free to transfer that surplus to the capital budget for the national network without providing any accounting to Congress. Since the national network is particularly short of capital, if I were Amtrak that's what I'd be doing right now: moving the operating surplus to the purchase of Viewliner IIs, Chicago Union Station renovations, etc.

 

[afigg]

With the new administration, besides the question of funding for Amtrak and transit, what will happen with the Gateway project? Which was on the fast track in the last year or so of the Obama administration. I doubt that there will be smooth sailing ahead for the project with the political battles that are going to take place over the coming year.

Railway Age article: Menendez presses Chao on Gateway.

It has been one of the Obama Administration's transportation priorities. The question is: will it be one of the Trump Administration's?

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate’s mass transit subcommittee, met on Jan.18 with U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary-designate Elaine Chao to impress upon her that advancing the Gateway project to replace the aging Hudson River rail tunnels must be the nation’s top transportation infrastructure priority in the Trump Administration.

The senator walked Secretary Chao, who led the U.S. Labor Department under President George W. Bush, through the complexities of the Gateway project, noting that it has bipartisan support from both New Jersey and New York governors, the states’ four U.S. senators, and regional transportation agencies.

“Gateway is one of the largest and most complex transportation projects in the country. Failure to complete the project in a timely manner would be a disaster for businesses and commuters in our region, and to the nation’s economy. I don’t believe we can be successful in this effort without the support of the Department of Transportation,” Sen. Menendez said.

 

[Karl1459]

IMHO, given where he is from Trump is the most likely Democrat... err Republican... err what ever he is today to understand the pressing need, and personally benefit from investments that need transit access.

 

[CraigDK]

From the Hudson Tunnel Project website...

This (The Alternative Development Report) probably should have been released when they announced the preferred alternative, but it wasn't. Maybe it was a result of the accelerated planning schedule they are using.

Anyway the document gives the reasoning and some detail on why they have chosen the preferred alternative from the 4 different tunneling options and what parts of the work that was done from ARC that can be used going forward. It also does a good job of explaining why some of the crazy ideas (such as having freight use the tunnels and the 4 level bridge across the river idea that someone suggested) are, well, crazy.

 

[jis]

FRA and NJT have released the Draft EIS for the Gateway Tunnel Project, with request to comment deadline of August 21, 2017. You can find it at:

http://www.hudsontunnelproject.com/

 

[jis]

https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/news/63030/gateway-development-portal-bridge/

Initiating a Gateway development programme to improve rail transportation between Newark and New York City, Governor Chris Christie has broken ground on the replacement of Portal Bridge.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

This project is so imperative, I think politics have largely dropped out of it, at least on the two new tunnels. Now if only a certain group of NJ advocates would shut up... I left over this. (And the fact they re-elected a moron over me for vice chair, but anyway.)

 

[west point]

Although the new Gateway bores are in the long run imperative in the short run the new Portal bridge is more important in the near future. One North river bore failure will still allow a few ( 6 ? ) round trips NYP <> Newark per hour/ Portal swing bridge failure would cut that off and only a Secaucus <> NYP shuttle could operate.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

A full Portal Bridge mechanical failure would only affect the transportation of secondary sewage sludge destined for tertiary treatment. Personally I think the best solution for Portal is spiking it. There are very few things Joe Clift is right about, but this is one of them.

 

[jis]

A full Portal Bridge mechanical failure would only affect the transportation of secondary sewage sludge destined for tertiary treatment. Personally I think the best solution for Portal is spiking it. There are very few things Joe Clift is right about, but this is one of them.

Unfortunately the more common failure mode is when the bridge fails to close after it was opened to let something through though.