Forget HBLR.

Make a north/south PATH line. Fort Lee to Journal Square to Bayonne.

Extend the HBLR, but do it up central/western Hudson county. Have the West Side spur make a right at MLK and head up through McGinely and Journal Squares, through The Heights, and on to Union City, North Bergen, Cliffside Park, etc. It would connect a lot of people, making that area much more accessible.

Also, the extra stop at HOB on weekends/late-nights is as much about track maintenance as it is about cost.

How’s it possible for something like this to have a budget estimate DOUBLE at the planning stage? Must have originally been cartoonishly lowballed numbers that couldn’t withstand any scrutiny. One wonders which parts of the budget were in fantasyland?

Completely agree. There’s something to be said for an elevated line

they added two new bridge to the project to replace Newark bay bridge ...so now you can get to the Holland tunnel entrance twice as fast where it becomes a parking lot . They must figure by getting all the cars their faster that you can probably turn your engine off for a while to wait to go in instead of slowly crawling forward .

Honestly would be better off building a new tunnel for that price - nothing like making 12 lanes of traffic go into two lanes ...or often 1 lane and instead of trying to address that bottle next they just make the middle of the bottle wider

So wait they want to replace a bridge they just spent billions on repairing to make last another decade and expanding .

A bridge STILL undergoing an expansion originally approved to handle additional tariffic from the skyway project - which itself was delayed , which was closed , fixed and reopened all before the improvements to handle the extra traffic from it were finished on the NBB. (Newark bay bridge) . Ya i know they found " Structural" problems during it that had to "fix"

But no penalty for being years behind either !

Simple. The goal of this isn't building roads OR reducing traffic. (It will make traffic worse)

The goal of this is to LINE POCKETS.

The turnpike extension is just an excuse to embezzle money.

Then continue it over the Kill Van Kull along the North Shore Line to the ST George terminal.

Well its sister bridge built around the same time and of the same design had a partial collapse several years ago and is also getting an expensive duplication...around 2 billion for a mile long bridge..

Far cheaper is the BRT plan I keep yapping about, and a heavy rail PATH style train will simply NEVER happen, the cost is far far too high.

Make Ocean from the Bayonne line up to Summit, JSQ PATH and all the way to 495 (and then to 42nd St PA) a Bus Rapid Transit route. No cars, just buses with loading platforms and stops every 1/2 mile like a subway or Light Rail. Signal priority so they zoom through the lights. It would be just like having a Subway line the length of the city and it would transform JC!

All the whining about needing parking for cars will be undercut by a massive improvement in the local transit and connections to the city and PATH at a relatively cheap cost compared to any other option. Yes there's current bus lines, but they are slow and often undependable especially during the heavy traffic hours they're needed most. This would be more like a Light rail with no tracks to lay. And make them electric or hydrogen powered.

Here's the route: https://imgur.com/qlDOTO1

Connect it further west to Newarks light rail as well.

For comparison, the initial completion of the HBLR cost around $2.2 Billon (~$3.7 Billon adj inflation). You could build almost 3 new lines which would lead to even more development and tax revenue than this project. Additionally, HBLR is at, may even be over, capacity as daily ridership is at ~52K per day (2017). IIRC, the HBLR was to have a capacity of about 40K daily riders although I can't find that information now.

Plus, IIRC this current plan would take about 10 years to complete and would undoubtedly cause even more traffic as there is already construction happening between the Newark and Bayonne portion. So they are fine with being in more traffic for about 10 years in order to alleviate traffic for the1-2 years after its done then we're back to square one.

I'd prefer the HBLR.

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This is a great idea and would be great to add a bike path to that

Yes!! That's the plan all along. There are already tracks on most of that span.

They don't care about traffic, only lining pockets

Sure, once you take an entire street there's lots of possibilities. But that's exactly why it will never happen, just the loss of parking will flip out the car crowd.

Porque no los dos

The NJTA's money is THEIR MONEY! No State assistance! No Federal Funds! Self sufficient! It is its own entity! That's why it works so well! The Governor's Office has a say, but they do what they want and/or have to, to make the World's Busiest Toll Road work! $10 Billion is their money, or if borrowed, pair back with their own money! Do some research! I did!

Both would be fine, as long as the PATH line is completed first!

It's our money, they take it from us more or less at gunpoint because there's no good alternative routes by design, and it's totally fucking absurd charging $10 to drive 30 miles.

The span does not have tracks but the PA did make the bridge capable of supporting it...

I meant on Staten Island from St. George to the span.

YES! The state even did a fucking study that said that it was good idea but for some reason can't find the funding to do it... but yet the DoT can magically summon 10 billion for 6 miles of highway

https://www.hcnj.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/8.12.13-Hudson-BRT-FINAL-8.20.13-PB-Edits.pdf

I fucking hate everything about this project and i just got 6 billion more reasons to hate it. JFC 10 billion?!

How about we spend that money putting the B in Hudson-BERGEN light rail

Funny thing about the TPK is it would be pretty freaking useless without all the connecting infrastructure. Pretending it exists all by itself with no externalities is a fiction that exists only on paper.

Thanks for that, I didn't know about that study, but as a lifelong professional creative, I've found that some ideas are pretty obvious. I do think it's too ambitious trying to take JFK, that's why I propose Ocean & Summit.

You're a bunch of ill-informed dunces! Let's have a conversation where I, the NJTA Historian and Engineering Consultant to the NJTA and NJDOT for OVER 37 YEARS (for those of you who can't do math, that's 1985 to 2022...it's called subtraction) sits with you, in person, in public, and/or takes a ride with you and teaches you how this all works! Let me know who's up for a real "road trip"!

please , its great to have you here if this is true. Give us some education then

Do you have a reason why? I know HBLR is much more unreliable.

Because not everyone here lives their life based around NYC. It takes me longer to get around Hudson County then it does to get to NYC. It's literally harder to get around town than to go to another town.

Plus, expanding it further should theoretically help with housing as it opens other areas with accessibility. Right now everyone is moving either near the PATH or near the light rail.

I understand that but I think you're confused and should re read the comments on this thread

I'm not confused and don't need to do anything. I stand on what I said

Yes. It is true! The Turnpike Authority was formed in 1949, in response to the fact that the Country was growing faster than any other IN HISTORY! Becoming the No. 1 World Power while in existence for ONLY 170 YEARS in existence. With that, the Northeast Region of the United States became the Financial and Industrial center of the World. And you can only fit just so many people in the Five Boroughs! So after they were full, New Jersey and Connecticut were next. The Thinkers and Planners of New Jersey saw that the time was ripe to implement a roadway "system" that would facilitate movement by both Jersey natives and those using the State as a "corridor" to reach beyond our borders to the North and South. A "turnpike" design was formulated since it was perfect for the purpose...limited access to those passing through while allowing astute natives an express pathway within the State itself. Starting operation in 1949, it was a very big hit! A nd soon became "the Busiest Toll Toad in the Entire World"!!!

Oops! "Toll ROAD"! Sorry. Fat Fingers.

NJTA would be taking out low-interest (i.e. federally subsidized) loans in order to build this project. To say there are no federal funds isn’t really true.

If so, the loans are GUARANTEED by the ASSETS of the NJTA, and future revenues, that far exceed $10 Billion! Their annual revenue generation, gross, is several billion dollars! Early repayment is almost a guarantee, if it does not come with penalties established by the lenders! And, as always, interest is TAX DEDUCTIBLE!!! Works for everybody EXCEPT the NIMBY and the BANANA bunch!

NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard!

BANANA = Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything

You know what happens when you "mess with the Bull"!!! Horns don't look good on anybody!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A new north/south PATH line would make it far easier to commute around in Hudson County. I'm talking about a line entirely inside New Jersey.

PATH is a lot faster and more reliable than HBLR, probably mostly because it doesn't cross roads.

You seem utterly impervious to the fact that an underground subway line is so prohibitively expensive it will never happen in a million years. There's no surface right of ways to use like they did with the HBLR, and an elevated line is also stupid expensive. Your desire for it doesn't make it any more practical than the often raised idiotic idea for a Hudson pedestrian bridge or tunnel.

There's zero reason to think building subway would be cheaper in Hudson county than in NY.

The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html

Please explain the justification for NJ tolls N-S but not E-W on 78 & 80. PA tolls E-W on their tpk, and NY tolls E-W and N-S on their Thruway. IMO the whole system is an inconsistent mess.

When I was a teen in the 70s there was a $0.10 toll on the Southern State pkwy on LI. They raised it to $0.25, and there was a such a shitshow, with people taking local roads to avoid it, that they got rid of the tolls entirely. And the world kept turning!

No it literally would not. The PATH only services those who are ONLY here for NYC. The PATH system and HBLR system are entirely different. Building a PATH line would be EXTREMELY expensive. Furthermore, I've rarely had an issue taking the HBLR compared to the PATH. The PATH is one of the reason I don't even venture to nyc anymore, from my perspective it seems it's happened more since covid.

This is like a little child telling you that building a road to CityB won't allow more people to get to CityB because the road only goes to CityA right now.

Of course, because the new road isn't fucking built yet. Completely not understanding what "build a new road" means.

Complete facepalm.

Are you 9?