As long as we have been agitating for additional freight rail infrastructure spending (disclosure: I have family who works for CSX), let’s talk about the Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project. New York City, is a region of many infrastructure pinch-points: there are only so many bridges, tunnels, and ports which can service the region. Geography, density and land pricing round out the difficulties infrastructure projects encounter. The Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project was begun in 1998 by New York City Economic Development Corporation and taken up by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). The proposed plan would link Jersey City and Brooklyn via a dedicated freight rail tunnel, connecting existing rail infrastructure in New Jersey with existing rail infrastructure in Brooklyn. This tunnel is intended to reduce the total vehicle miles traveled by trucks in the New York/New Jersey region. Currently rail freight, to move East of the Hudson River, has to either travel an extra 280 miles round trip to Selkirk, NY, use a low-capacity float bridge (barge) in New Jersey, or the freight stops in New Jersey and is rubber-wheeled into New York, clogging either the Lincoln Tunnel or the GW Bridge.

The already completed Draft Environmental Impact Statement pegs the cost for a Double Tunnel System, with existing infrastructure on both sides of the tunnel upgrades, at $7.4 billion which would allow for the greater flexibility and freight volume.
The benefits of the rail tunnel are:

• Improve the movement of goods within the region by generating annual user benefits of up to $44.6 million. User benefits are a combination of savings to drivers from decreased congestion, as well as reductions in accidents, roadway maintenance costs and air pollution;
• Create a more-modally balanced goods movement system by diverting up to 14.9 million tons of freight from truck to rail;
• Improve the regional environmental quality by eliminating approximately 1.0 million truck trips per year on the Hudson River crossings and reducing commodity truck vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) by approximately 4.5%;
• Improve regional economic development by creating up to almost 30,000 new jobs and generating $1.6 billion in personal income; and
• Provide strategic system redundancy to the region’s Hudson River crossings by creating another option for crossing the Hudson River.

Not only would it get trucks off the street, the tunnel would remove economic bottlenecks in the region. Commerce and the environment wins. This project is arguable “shovel ready” and I implore the New York and New Jersey Congressional Delegations to advocate for its inclusion into the infrastructure stimulus.
Read more about the Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project.