Still, the price tag seems astronomical. But I understand that the new station is a second benefit.
OT - Not looking good for the Gateway Tunnel project
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I always like these threads because everyone is an expert on spending money that isn't theirs. And no, I don't have any answers but being on the hook for potentially billions of dollars doesn't sound too great. Perhaps they can create a money tree in Trenton when they do the half billion dollars government building restoration in the year ahead.
If it’s tax money , it is money you have been taxed on that they are spending. Yeah, you should get some say/have some input as to how their tax monies are used. Isn’t that the whole point of what led to America : taxation without representation .
Built into any price or decision is the fact that the only one existing tunnel is old and a maintenance nightmare. During the winter Amtrak has ice patrols literally walking the tunnel breaking ice off of it (leading to many of the delays mentioned). What would the price be to the economy of the area if the tunnel falters?
This can turn into a serious issue and something that has to be addressed. As someone stated above, I do not have the answer as the project is so expensive due to many factors, including political corruption. But is has to be addressed.
This can turn into a serious issue and something that has to be addressed. As someone stated above, I do not have the answer as the project is so expensive due to many factors, including political corruption. But is has to be addressed.
Unless we get workers from low wage countries, we are not going to be able to build much.
US workers cost $1000 a day and result in $2.5B per mile. It is time to move out of NY Metro since we are stuck with the poor infrastructure we have.
Look at how quickly China, Qatar, Dubai and Saudi Arabia can build out so fast.
NYC is not worth visiting anymore with how long it takes and how expensive it is.
US workers cost $1000 a day and result in $2.5B per mile. It is time to move out of NY Metro since we are stuck with the poor infrastructure we have.
Look at how quickly China, Qatar, Dubai and Saudi Arabia can build out so fast.
NYC is not worth visiting anymore with how long it takes and how expensive it is.
They build quickly because they essentially are using slave labor.
In this case we're talking about money that would have been funded by taxes levied in the future (both state and federal). I'm not a Christie fan by any means but ARC was a disaster waiting to happen for NJ taxpayers. Need I remind anyone living here that our state is already in sorry shape financially, among the worst in the country (https://ballotpedia.org/State_credit_ratings). I'm not--and I don't see anyone here--celebrating the fact that there isn't a better plan in place for NJ Transit as it is desparately needed. But to assume the Feds would just eat any cost overages out of the goodness of their hearts (which, as others pointed out, were pretty much guaranteed to be astronomical) and move ahead with ARC as proposed would have been beyond foolish. ARC had a very real chance of blowing our state budget but NY, NJ and the Feds need to get back to the bargaining table and figure out a viable long-term solution.
Yeah. If only we could take advantage of slave labor, then everything would be so much less expensive.
For the love of all things holy will some moderator step up, grow a set of balls and finally ban this f*ckin' troll, already?
Things were cheaper to build when you did not care if people died while building them. Let alone actually have to pay them
True of the past, but let's focus on the present. Our costs for such work is 5 times more expensive than France (see article #2). Last I checked, France is pretty advanced on worker rights and safety. So what the heck is our problem (hint: unions and government corruption)?
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I think you have to be a little more specific.
The real problem with regard to the relationship between government agencies and contracts is the revolving door.
You know how it works - and I saw it play out in shocking fashion in the few years I spent as a sr. manager for a transportation contractor.
Guy works as an engineer for a few years for a DOT (or similar agency). He makes some connections and gets a job as a senior engineer with a contractor. The expectation - and what plays out in reality - is that he'll leverage his old contacts in the DOT to gain advantage in the contract process. At his level, he's expected to talk to his former colleagues at the DOT and uncover specific details about a particular job that would give his employer some advantage.
He stays there for a few years and then gets hired back into government at a director level. Now he's an integral part of the contracts process. He works, behind the scenes, with his former employer - alerting them to upcoming jobs, enlisting their help in writing RFPs.
The little-known secret is that 9 times out of 10, the company chosen to write the RFP is ultimately selected for the contract. And why not, right? After all, they're intimate with all of the requirements and know exactly what the agency is looking for.
This back and forth career trajectory goes to the highest levels. What it does is effectively circumvent the "lowest bid" concept because all of the submissions, except for one, are found materially deficient. So the contractors are setting the price for the work and the agency heads are letting them get away with it because they know that when they retire from their government jobs one of those contractors is going to offer them a nice cushy VP gig.
So sad, but also 100% true. Same dynamic with politicians and lobbying companies. The bigger a project, we more the RFP/bidding process can be tailored to one particular company.
What I also find shocking is state costs for normal road projects (repaving and reconstruction). Much, much higher than local and county projects. They bundle work together and get only one, perhaps two bids (lots of tricks to achieve this). Local projects routinely get 5-6 bids and have a large spread in prices.
We used to play this game on the reg.
We were in the ITS business. When the "6 to 9" project was announced, it quickly became the icing on everyone's cake, as far as sales pipeline. But the Turnpike Authority doesn't have any real interest in bidding a job like that, piecemeal. What they're looking for is a single throat to choke. So when the first bid meeting is held in Woodbridge the real work is the mad scramble to "team up" with firms in other sectors to form vertical entrants. It's like musical chairs and we used to do it all the time.
So essentially many companies bid as one "entity" and can better set the price in their own interest. Nice!
How do you fix it
I wrote 2 RFPs and I will not work for either private company that won either bid.
I would like to prepare another RFP and bring in a contract to supplement one of the contracts and I will not work for them either
I wrote 2 RFPs and I will not work for either private company that won either bid.
I would like to prepare another RFP and bring in a contract to supplement one of the contracts and I will not work for them either
And really, it's set up to work that way. Again, using the 6-9 as an example, the TPA set a max cost on the job inclusive of all the various bits. So engineering, excavation, grading, materials, paving, electric, comms, bridge replacement, signage, etc., were all included in the original bid doc with a total price of something like $6 billion.
If you're one firm that does one thing - say, electronic signage - how do you put in a bid for just your piece of the job with any kind of comfort level that you won't be priced out?
The only way to do it successfully is to form a team of all the various subs under one general contractor and work together to put in one bid that covers all the work and meets the price.
In theory it's a reasonable idea. I've been a part of a few of these - most notably when I was on the team that put together the ECTP project for NYC back in 2006. The "general contractor" was Northrup Grumman. I worked for HP at the time and we were the "lead integrator". So Northrup owned all the work (and eventually got fired and taken to court by the city) but we owned all of the technology integration. I was responsible for 3 different parts of the job and had a dozen subs underneath me.
Where it falls apart, as a business model, is that every rung of the ladder is getting a cut. So you might have a single task order that costs $X in labor and materials but there's three or four different companies that are adding 10% to the work.
It is remarkable how much blatantly unethical stuff is perfectly legal in NJ.
@brianoc - I don't know there is a fix. Everyone is feeding from the trough so nobody has any incentive to end it. Or even scale it down a bit.
I have to be honest I was surprised at how few companies actually submitted bids. Several of the bidders were also clearly unqualified so that even reduced the pool.
You will find this up and down the NE Corridor. SEPTA sucks in Philly and they are finally phasing out tokens for farecards on the subway. DC Metro sucks with regular fare increases, service cuts and 40 year old carpeted-floor train cars (dumbest idea in mass transit) still in use (though the new cars are nice). Maryland MARC train also has regular delays and breakdowns despite new locomotives in the past few years.
Years ago I commuted from New Brunswick to NYC. I found it to be less stressful to drive up the Turnpike and park at Newport Center Mall in Jersey City and take PATH over than to take NJTransit and PATH from Newark.
That 10 b+ figure is speculative. But in any case, any project of this magnitude is going to have cost overruns because of its complexity and too many unknown unknowns. In the past we would have gotten this done. Now we have nothing but excuses. This is a project that is going to get done eventually and the cost overruns will be even more expensive thx to inflation.
Unknown unknowns?
Nonsense.
This is also nonsense: "This is a project that is going to get done eventually and the cost overruns will be even more expensive thx to inflation."
Inflation is a rising tide. If the costs are inflated, so are the dollars that pay for them.
The current plan actually does charge the riders - NJT is proposing a roughly $2 surcharge per ticket.
The arguments with regard to who pays for new rail infrastructure were previously focused on NYC and its ratables. That's precisely why Christie killed the ARC project. The thinking is that the real beneficiaries of improved access to Manhattan are New York City itself, via the companies that employ NJ-based labor.
If it's impossible to commute into Manhattan then the companies based there will see a decline in the labor pool. The likely reaction would be for more of them to move out of Manhattan, to places like Jersey City. For NJ, that's a win/win. Ergo, why would New Jersey want to spend so much as Dime 1 to pay for a rail project? If New York want to keep the tax revenue, then New York should pay heavily to do so.
Then there's the Amtrak issue. Amtrak actually owns the infrastructure. If Amtrak owns it and it sucks, then let them pay for it. Christie's argument re: ARC was that NJ should be 3rd in line to foot the bill, since NJ is the lesser of the three beneficiaries.
Speaking of ridership, why should folks who live in other parts of the country pay for this project that serves the regional NY area?
I’d prefer to see major rail stations setup outside NYC in NJ and NY and have high speed trains shuttling riders from those hubs into NYC. Why do all commuter trains need to make the full trip to Penn and Grand Central when they can feed local hubs instead?
NJT and Amtrak should be privatized. The state and federal governments are incapable of running train operations. The government's role should be to subsidize rates, especially for lower income residents. Probably should cap the profit margin like with utilities and own the train line right of ways. The fact of the matter is, rates are too low and way too many unprofitable routes and times need to be eliminated.
I'm not altogether certain I agree. The more successful rail models overseas are all owned by their respective governments. Intercity passenger rail is, by most definitions, a natural monopoly.
Amtrak's situation is merely "awkward". The government supports it, but doesn't support it enough to be truly successful. If it's going to work, especially as we move toward high-speed rail, then the fed has to be all in. You can't just dip your toe in the water, half-ass the attempt and call it good.
NJT is a different story altogether. Pre-Christie, NJT was a... um... "model railroad". Other commuter rail execs from across the country would come to study its operations, hamstrung as they may have been by virtue of running on rented infrastructure. Or frenemies at nj.com have the right of it when they say that Christie's patronage appointments of spectacularly unqualified people to the NJT board have essentially sunk the operation. It can be turned around.
Yes. This is it. But they actually wanted to scrap the south Newark stop and just go to the airport until Sounder minds told them to knock it off.
Haven't you heard?
Best infrastructure plan eva, believe me, Betta than anything you've eva seen and best thing we've done maybe eva...you wouldn't believe how many people, and they tell me, this infrastructure plan is gonna be the best. . is coming.
Sure...while you are at why don’t you have older residents in New Jersey stop paying the large portion of their Town Property Taxes that go for the School budget. Let the ones with kids still in school pay for it.
I'll be honest that I don't have enough details to 100% conclude that Amtrak should be privatized, but a train company that allows the infrastructure of its most used route (NE corridor) to decay and rot has serious problems.
As for NJT, I just see no financial solution. NJ financial crisis is that big. Also, NJT has been having significant issues for way longer than 8 years. I passed on a job at Pfizer in 2003 due to NJT unreliability and constant issues. I was wrapping up a year consulting assignment at Roche and tracked NJT service daily for about 4 months. It was brutal.
As is the case with so many other things, there's a "vicious cycle" element that needs to be broken - hence my comments specific to Amtrak and the fed. Their budget subsidy gets cut because ridership is down, which causes service to degrade, which negatively impacts ridership.
At some point, you have to shit or get off the pot. You have to say "passenger rail in this country is no longer really a thing" or you have to commit to fixing it completely. The challenge is personified by the comments in this thread - nobody wants to pay for something that they don't use on a consistent basis. In European countries with spectacular passenger rail service, that service is a source of national pride. People in this country have zero f*cks for that kind of thing. It's a very, very difficult situation.
Let's talk about the Big Dig. It totally transformed Boston. It turned a disgusting dilapidated elevated highway into a glittering Greenway. Nobody in Boston talks about its cost overruns today. Everyone loves it.
I wonder if there has been a study on the fiscal benefit to Boston long term even considering the astronomical cost overruns.
While the costs are clearly a legitimate concern there is also a cost of doing nothing.
I'm not sure you'd get many impartial, reasoned perspectives with regard to the notion of NYC withering on the vine.
Personally - and this is just my opinion - I think that massive investment in commuter rail between NJ and NYC is a bad idea. I don't think that encouraging the upward growth of Manhattan benefits anyone other than the City and State of New York. Even putting aside my Jersey bias, I believe that the greater benefit is found in spending money to bring more of the global business community to places like Jersey City and Newark and I'd rather see our billions invested in that.
As someone who lives on the Raritan Valley Line, whose riders have been told the only way we are getting direct one seat rides into NYC is if the Gateway/ARC Tunnel is completed, I have a vested in interest in seeing that project get done. It would benefit everyone's property values not just those who actually rely on NJ Transit to get to work like myself. Having said all that, I did not think what Christie was asking for was unreasonable. The history of delivering such massive public infrastructure projects on time and on budget is poor and it getting it straight upfront as to who would be paying (shouldn't it be the winning bidders?) those overages struck me as exercising the proper due diligence.
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