# The East Side Access Project



## AlanB (Mar 20, 2010)

A neat video put out by the MTA shows some of the tunnels and already excavated sections of the new station under Grand Central. You can view that video

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## GG-1 (Mar 20, 2010)

AlanB said:


> A neat video put out by the MTA shows some of the tunnels and already excavated sections of the new station under Grand Central. You can view that video


One Word Wow

Gee I would never have thought New York was a holly place But it is. :lol: :lol:  :lol: :lol:

Aloha, And Mahalo


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## battalion51 (Mar 20, 2010)

Interesting video, glad to see that the work is actually happening and it's not just smoke in mirrors.


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## Nexis4Jersey (May 3, 2010)

nice to see this project is going smoothly , what about the ARC Tunnel.


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## jis (May 3, 2010)

Nexis4Jersey said:


> nice to see this project is going smoothly , what about the ARC Tunnel.


All that is visible in the way of work is drilling for soil and rock samples along the route parallel to the NEC between Secaucus and the Palisades.

Similar activity for the Portal Bridge replacement project is also visible.

Neither of those two projects are supposed to see any serious construction work until next year anyway.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 3, 2010)

And if we are lucky, they won't be built at all.


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## jis (May 3, 2010)

Green Maned Lion said:


> And if we are lucky, they won't be built at all.


Why don't you want the tunnels and the new Portal Bridge built? I thought the beef that your crew had was about the deep cavern station and lack of connection to NYP. Has that now morfed into a totally Luddite position that nothing should be built?


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## Green Maned Lion (May 3, 2010)

jis said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > And if we are lucky, they won't be built at all.
> ...


Well, at this point, the project seems to be heading full speed into the deep cavern, and I don't think (I, I am not speaking on behalf of the Coalition) we can get it redirected where it should be, as the first point. But secondarily, I really find it somewhat offensive (not to mention illogical!) that on one hand NJT gets a $300 million budget cut costing me an additional 47% off peak, yet on the other hand still wants to spend the $9.8 billion on the two projects to expand capacity as they cut 4% of train service.

And as we both know, the cuts and fare hikes only cover half the deficit, approximately. I personally hold the position that the severe service cuts will be phased in over the rest of the year.

I think that NJ Transit should be spending time looking at whether, with the new order of things as they currently are, construction of additional capacity is even warranted.

And further, I am of the opinion that this project is so deeply flawed, and so completely unsafe in bad situations, that I'd rather see no tunnel built at all than this proposal.

The Coalition's current position, if you happen to be interested, is Penn Station First, and if possible, kill the deep cavern. Myself and others within the group believe that if the tunnel connects to Penn in its plans, monetary concerns will kill the deep cavern on the weight of its own problems.


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## jis (May 3, 2010)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Well, at this point, the project seems to be heading full speed into the deep cavern, and I don't think (I, I am not speaking on behalf of the Coalition) we can get it redirected where it should be, as the first point. But secondarily, I really find it somewhat offensive (not to mention illogical!) that on one hand NJT gets a $300 million budget cut costing me an additional 47% off peak, yet on the other hand still wants to spend the $9.8 billion on the two projects to expand capacity as they cut 4% of train service.
> And as we both know, the cuts and fare hikes only cover half the deficit, approximately. I personally hold the position that the severe service cuts will be phased in over the rest of the year.
> 
> I think that NJ Transit should be spending time looking at whether, with the new order of things as they currently are, construction of additional capacity is even warranted.


See I have different assumptions and hence arrive at different conclusions.

My assumption is that the crisis of not having a stable source of operating funds has finally come to a head, and we are at the cusp. Even Simpson says that he will work on finding a stable source of operating funds, and I have no reason to disbelieve him on the face of it. I await to see what he proposes. This disaster is of the collective making of both the Reps and Dems and the utter incompetence at the top of NJ government. They cannot really walk away from transit in NJ and even the dumbest governors know that. But each hopes that they can kick the can down to the next guy and avoid taking the difficult and possibly unpopular steps. Well ultimately comes a point when there is no space left to kick the can to, and we are close to that situation now. Hence the current immediate pain. But it shall pass.

I believe that the New York region will eventually prosper and grow, but of course there will be hiccups on the way, the current one being a major one. Notwithstanding what is going on now we must build infrastructure to enable the necessary energy efficient and reduced pollution mobility in the region. Therefore it is imperative that we build infrastructure as money for the same becomes available. Money that is available now may not materialize again in decades, so it would be foolish to not make the best possible use of it while it is available. for constructing first of all the Portal Bridge and then even the tunnels while working hard to enable future connections if not immediately.

So based on those assumptions I actually support the construction of the Portal replacement and also the basic tunnels, while trying to get it rerouted at the New York end. But even if the rerouting does not materialize it is not going to be as enormous disaster as some make it out to be. So I guess we will just agree to disagree then 

I guess my attitude towards money comes from having been brought up in a world of relative poverty where money was always hard to come by to build anything, so when it became available we tended to do the most we could with it before it disappeared again. This attitude would not be found in people who have generally been brought up in relative prosperity where, if money is not used this year it is there next year and the year after and so on. mind you, I am not speaking of individuals here but I speak of project money to build roads, railways and bridges. Of course the same India is now floating in relative prosperity in terms of availability of capital, so even there attitudes may be changing who knows? OTOH, as we in the US race towards bankruptcy by spending ridiculous amounts of money on the military and other silly ventures, while generally refusing to pay for it through adequate taxes, the situations appears to be reversing here, causing capital to become scarce for infrastructure. But one lives based on ones own life experiences I suppose.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 3, 2010)

I admit that I have never lived with poverty (it is one hardship I have never faced, thank god, although I'd probably prefer it to some of the other ones I've dealt with- I digress) either around me or for myself. However, I have always been of the belief that money is a valuable resource and as such should not be wasted.

I don't mind spending it intelligently, but when a project is flawed, I'd rather the money not be wasted. I mean, if the tunnels are built as proposed, they will add no capacity to Amtrak, and no redundancy. I don't doubt that Pennsy built the North River tunnels well. They're a hundred years old, and will probably last another hundred. Or more. But then, it can take Amtrak that long to get funding that big, I'd think.

So if they are built, within a reasonable period of time, either Amtrak will run into a capacity bottleneck of its own and be screwed, or they will be forced to spend another large bunch of billion dollar bills building the tunnels that should have been built in the first place. I have a hard time letting that happen, especially if Federal money is involved. Federal money should not be levied on projects that are built with specific eye towards the elimination of reasonable Federal benefits.

Federal benefits that make so much sense, not doing them is almost negligent. NJ Transit is building this so they can have their own railroad north of Secaucus and not use Amtrak's Northeast Corridor for M&E, M-B, M/B, and PVL trains.

Another variation in our opinions, I think, is that I think Penn Station itself can be reasonably reconfigured to handle more trains, especially if one is willing to consider the impact of NJ Transit trains no longer having to foul tracks pulling into lower-number tracks.

At least, I seemed to glean from you the opinion that a separate station is needed. But I guess our main point of contention is that I think no tunnel is better than dead end tunnels and you don't?


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## jis (May 3, 2010)

Green Maned Lion said:


> So if they are built, within a reasonable period of time, either Amtrak will run into a capacity bottleneck of its own and be screwed, or they will be forced to spend another large bunch of billion dollar bills building the tunnels that should have been built in the first place. I have a hard time letting that happen, especially if Federal money is involved. Federal money should not be levied on projects that are built with specific eye towards the elimination of reasonable Federal benefits.
> Federal benefits that make so much sense, not doing them is almost negligent. NJ Transit is building this so they can have their own railroad north of Secaucus and not use Amtrak's Northeast Corridor for M&E, M-B, M/B, and PVL trains.
> 
> Another variation in our opinions, I think, is that I think Penn Station itself can be reasonably reconfigured to handle more trains, especially if one is willing to consider the impact of NJ Transit trains no longer having to foul tracks pulling into lower-number tracks.
> ...


There is no denying that things could be done better. In this sense almost all projects are at the end of the day flawed, because certain things cannot be achieved given the political realities. So I don't find that to be a very persuasive argument for not doing something. Again a difference in perspective that we just have to agree to disagree about.

There are certain efficiencies that can be gained by operating Penn Station slightly differently, but nothing that gives an additional 24tph capacity or even half that. So I simply don't believe the proponents of that theory until they show a credible simulation validating that claim. Even Amtrak, who should be interested in that possibility has plain out stated that that claim is absurd. So far the only thing that I have seen is an attempt to establish this claim by the technique of repeated assertion.

Yes, the major point where we should simply agree to disagree is the one about whether a dead end tunnel with 24tph capacity is worth building or not. In principle any push-pull or EMU New York terminating service can use those tracks, and hence in principle Amtrak could use them for Keystones and WAS - NYP Acelas. So there are all sorts of possible configurations of usage even with 6 dead end tracks, that offload NYP. So I do not buy the claim that there is no federal benefit. Yes, the benefit is less than what one could achieve in a perfect world.

Secondly, there is always an outside chance that at least the upper level can be extended further east, though it will be an interesting political struggle to achieve that, and should be no more difficult than getting the tunnels connected to NYP in the first place


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## Green Maned Lion (May 3, 2010)

jis said:


> There are certain efficiencies that can be gained by operating Penn Station slightly differently, but nothing that gives an additional 24tph capacity or even half that. So I simply don't believe the proponents of that theory until they show a credible simulation validating that claim. Even Amtrak, who should be interested in that possibility has plain out stated that that claim is absurd. So far the only thing that I have seen is an attempt to establish this claim by the technique of repeated assertion.


24 TPH is absurd and ridiculous. I think 15 TPH, though, is possible. I haven't run simulations, but it works in my head looking at the track layout. Admittedly, not the most accurate of measures. And I still think Alternative GML makes more sense than any of them, except your suggestion of extending the 7 to Secaucus. But naturally, I'm biased, since it is my idea, and also am aware that it hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of ever being built.


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