[ad_1]
New York and New Jersey have submitted a new plan for a rail tunnel project under the Hudson River that reduces the previous estimate by nearly $ 1.5 billion, while officials are looking to get out of the way. Financial stalemate with the federal government that has stalled progress in recent years.
The plan announced Friday plans to achieve design and construction savings that would reduce the estimated costs of the new tunnel from just over $ 11 billion to $ 9.5 billion. The hundred-year-old tunnel repair that was damaged during the Sandy storm in 2012 and which is a source of frequent delays due to a crumbling infrastructure, would cost about $ 1.8 billion, or about 200 million more than previous estimates.
The net decrease in costs means that states will seek $ 5.4 billion in a federal grant program instead of $ 6.8 billion, project officials announced in an email on Friday.
It is not clear how this will affect the prospects of the project. The United States Department of Transportation has attributed to the tunnel and associated railway bridge project in New Jersey low ratings that disqualified them from the capital investment grant program.
Ministry officials said the low ratings were justified by the total cost of the application – which surpasses any other project in the country – and by the fact that states plan to finance their part of the project, between $ 5 and $ 6 billion. dollars, with federal loans. Project officials claimed that this practice was consistent with what other states have done.
More than 400 trains and approximately 200,000 passengers use the New Jersey tunnel and Portal Bridge daily on trains operated by Amtrak or New Jersey Transit. An analysis commissioned by both operators this spring revealed that passengers traveling between New Jersey and New York suffered rail delays of two hours or more 85 times between 2014 and the end of 2018.
[ad_2]
Source link