Cross-Harbor Highway Tunnel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.
Cross-Harbor Highway Tunnel refers to a proposed underwater tunnel for automobiles and trucks between central New Jersey and New York City beyond Manhattan, with a location running partly under New York Harbor.
Contents |
[edit] Background
Direct highway tunnels between New Jersey and Queens or Brooklyn have been suggested to reduce the traffic through Manhattan that uses its crowded streets and water crossings, including tunnels under Manhattan and tunnels under the New York Harbor.[1] One highway advocate specifically calls for dedicating a proposed Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel and its rail corridors to trucks instead of to freight trains,[2] claiming that such an approach would provide more capacity at lower cost. However, the consultants who originally studied the feasibility of the rail tunnel considered that possibility, and they claimed that connecting roadways, especially those in New Jersey, lacked enough capacity to handle the traffic.[3] Highway tunnels have also be proposed between Long Island and Southern Connecticut.[4] One enthusiast wants any cross-harbor tunnel to include bikeways and walkways.[5]
While he was chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Robert Moses proposed high-speed roads directly connecting New Jersey with Queens and Brooklyn in three cross-Manhattan projects: the Lower Manhattan Expressway, the Mid-Manhattan Expressway and the Trans-Manhattan Expressway. Only the last of these was built and it requires vehicles to use the Cross-Bronx Expressway for access to Long Island. The 1937 design for the Mid-Manhattan Expressway was a pair of tunnels connecting the soon-to-be-finished Lincoln Tunnel on Manhattan's west side with the soon-to-be-started Queens-Midtown Tunnel on the east side. With planning typical of the 1930s, surface road connections were included at both ends and near mid-span (to 5th Avenue}, substantially raising costs, Reductions in federal public works funding left the plan stranded.[1] Needs for highway access connecting New Jersey with Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island were answered in 1962 with the Trans-Manhattan Expressway and the lower deck of the George Washington Bridge, connecting New Jersey and the Bronx, and in 1964 with the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island with Brooklyn. The combination of these major roadworks and the increased civic protests, such as those led by Jane Jacobs, against disruptions from urban highways dampened further projects to expand cross-Hudson and cross-Harbor highways.
A Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel is currently funded for planning,[6] after some 14 years of advocacy and investigations.[7] The favored alignment is between the Greenville freight yard operated by Conrail in Jersey City and the Bay Ridge rail line of the Long Island Rail Road, operated by New York and Atlantic Railway, running in a four-track corridor between 61st and 62nd Streets in Brooklyn eastward from 11th Avenue. Design investigations for this tunnel indicate that ventilation to permit the use of diesel locomotives will be practical with a tunnel length of 5.5 mi (8.8 km). The dimensions of the tunnel tubes being proposed are large enough for one rail track used by double-stacked container cars or two lanes of automobile and truck traffic.[8] An enginering evaluation performed in 2000 estimated that a pair of these tunnel tubes would cost US$2.15 billion to construct.[9] The full cost of the rail project is estimated at up to US$7.4 billion,[10] because of the large amount of track and facility improvements needed for the rail lines of Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island to accommodate double-stacked container cars.
[edit] Tunnel location and characteristics
A Cross-Harbor Highway Tunnel may be feasible between I-78 at the northwest corner of Liberty State Park in Jersey City and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, I-278, south of the former Brooklyn Navy Yard. This alignment would pass under Liberty State Park, the Upper Harbor just south of Battery Park, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (officially I-478) and the Brooklyn waterfront, with a length of about 4.0 mi (6.4 km). With this location, it would probably replace the last 1.5 mi (2.4 km) of the New Jersey Turnpike Extension and the Holland Tunnel as the eastern terminus of I-78. The maximum depth of roadway below high water would need to be at least 120 ft (37 m) in order to pass under the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, but the length of the tunnel would provide a gentle grade of two percent or less. Ventilating the 12,000 ft (3 700 m) center section is an engineering challenge, but such issues have been addressed by the Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel project investigations.
If the Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel's estimates for tunnel costs are accurate, that construction costs for a four mile, two-tube, four-lane highway tunnel in a similar location would be around US$1.6 billion. A bored tunnel under the harbor with single-highway access at each end avoids most of the needs for surface-based construction and utility relocation that made the Boston Central Artery Project so expensive. However, land, infrastructure and roadway connections would be significant components, probably equaling tunnel construction, for a total project cost that could reach US$3 billion, in the price range of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project near Washington, DC.[11] A land-based tunnel of comparable length to replace the Gowanus Expressway in West Brooklyn, including several surface road connections, has a total project cost estimated in 2003 at US$7.5 billion.[12] [13]
[edit] Comparisons with other tunnels and bridges
An estimated cost of US$95 million per lane-mile for tunnel construction alone can be compared to lane-mile costs, adjusted to 2006, for the 1927 Holland Tunnel at US$95 millon, the 1950 Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel at US$133 million,[14] and the recently planned Labrador-Newfoundland Tunnel at US$88 million.[15] (BBT costs were run up by interruption during World War II and by the erratic management under Robert Moses.) Bored tunnel construction has become increasingly efficient in recent years. The following table indicates how a 4-lane Cross-Harbor Highway Tunnel would compare with other major waterway crossings around and near Manhattan:
thousand vehicles
waterway crossing lanes per day per lane
-------------------------- ----- ------- --------
George Washington Bridge 14 300 21
Lincoln Tunnel 6 120 20
Holland Tunnel 4 100 25
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge 12 190 16
Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel 4 60 15
Brooklyn Bridge 6 140 23
Manhattan Bridge, 2008 est. 7 150 21
Williamsburg Bridge 8 140 18
Queens Midtown Tunnel 6 80 13
Queensboro Bridge 8 190 24
Triborough Bridge 8 110 14
-------------------------- ----- ------- --------
Total lanes and traffic 83 1580 19
-------------------------- ----- ------- --------
Cross-Harbor Highway Tunnel 4 80 20
[edit] Tunnel benefits and limitations
A Cross-Harbor Highway Tunnel would become a preferred route between Long Island and central New Jersey and westward. Most traffic to and through southern New Jersey would continue to use the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, while most traffic to and through northern New Jersey would continue to use the George Washington Bridge and Trans-Manhattan Expressway. The potential for traffic reduction probably does not justify more than four lanes; greater capacity could also overload the capacities of connecting highways. A new tunnel would likely become a toll facility priced higher than current nearby tunnels.
[edit] External links
- Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
- Holland Tunnel from NycRoads.com
- Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel from NycRoads.com
[edit] References
- ^ a b Steve Anderson (2006). Mid-Manhattan Expressway. Eastern Roads. Citing Douglas A. Willinger of Takoma Park Highway Design Studio, "An express tunnel directly connecting New Jersey with Brooklyn without access to Manhattan would be a logical thing...bored tunneling was cited at an April 1997 Regional Planning Association panel as providing the advantage of far less surface disruption."
- ^ Peter Samuel (Mar 28 2005). New York mayor: "We shouldn't build this (rail freight) tunnel". Toll Roads Newsletter.
- ^ Michelle Ernst (Oct 15 1999). Harbor Truck Tunnel Headed South. Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
- ^ Robert Wiemer (Jun 3 2001). The Outer Burrow / Link LI to Mainland with a Tunnel under the Sound. Newsday (Long Island, NY).
- ^ J. Jih (2005). Bridges and Tunnels in New York and New Jersey in the United States. GeoCities.
- ^ Patrick McGeehan (Mar 17 2006). Regional Transit Council puts Hudson Tunnel on list. New York Times.
- ^ Rep. Jerrold Nadler (1993). HR 2784, New York Harbor Tunnel Act of 1993. Library of Congress.
- ^ Gareth Mainwaring (2002). The Development of the New York Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project. Hatch Mott Macdonald (Toronto, ON).
- ^ Michael G. Carey, President (2000). Cross Harbor Freight Movement Major Investment Study. New York City Economic Development Corporation.
- ^ Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project (2004). Frequently Asked Questions. Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project.
- ^ Steven Ginsberg (May 19 2006). Fanfare above the Potomac. Washington Post.
- ^ News Editor (Winter 2003). Forgotten Brooklyn Mega Project Stirring. Transportation Alternatives.
- ^ Gowanus Project Community Office (7 Jul 2005). Gowanus Project. New York State Department of Transportation.
- ^ Steve Anderson (2006). The Crossings of Metro New York. Eastern Roads.
- ^ Hatch Mott McDonald (2004). Fixed link between Labrador and Newfoundland. Hatch Mott McDonald (Toronto, ON).
