Thursday, November 18, 2010

NYC Subway to N.J. Weighed in Wake of Canceled Tunnel

"New York City officials are studying a proposal to extend the No. 7 subway line from Manhattan under the Hudson River to Secaucus after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie killed plans for a new tunnel linking the states (aka ARC)."

I like this plan and it may be better than the original. First off it's cheaper than ARC and that new tunnel was just for NJT into the West side. With this plan anyone could get on the 7 train in Secaucus (Amtrak, NJT, PATH) and easily get into/out of the city and to either the West or East side of the city. Commuters coming up from NJ/Philly who didn't work sort of close to Penn Station and its accessible subways had a rough go of it to get to other parts of the city; this is largely resolved with the 7. I bet this would cut down on NJT trains that need to come into the city as some may terminate in Secaucus or the extended 7 line would simply reduce demand for NJT thus NJT would run fewer trains. Less traffic in the Hudson tunnel means it'd be better for Amtrak so most likely better for those Philly commuters who take Amtrak. Not sure why they didn't think of this in the first place.

posted by Guy in NYC at NYC Subway to N.J. Weighed in Wake of Canceled Tunnel - 8:15 PM

4 Comments:

  • Makes sense. To us in Australia (from a tourist point of view) using amtrak services to travel between NY cities also makes perfect sense. As far as we can tell travel times are on par with air, especially once you take into account getting to / from airports etc. Cheers.

    By Anonymous Matt, at 11:53 PM, November 18, 2010  

  • Just wanted to let you know that this blog is awesome. I recently acquired a great job in Manhattan and live in Philly. This blog has given me great incite as to the benefits and disadvantages of commuting via Amtrak/Acela. It is a crying shame how expensive and inconvenient they are making these services right now. With modern technology today, there should be absolutely no reason why we can't build high speed transportation nationally. But of course... it is always about the money.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:57 AM, November 23, 2010  

  • I think they did think of this first, but decided the lack of a one-seat ride was a big enough issue to lead them to move on the the ARC plan. Getting more people out of the Amtrak/NJT tubes is a key part of any effort to enable Amtrak to increase service levels. Increased service levels are the only hope for ever seeing ticket prices go down, so here's hoping this moves forward.

    By Blogger Ran Barton, at 10:12 PM, November 25, 2010  

  • Amtrak does not stop at Secaucus. It was not designed to accomodate Amtrak for some reason.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 10:17 AM, January 06, 2011  

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