A Great Idea Rethought

From article "Don't bet on ever seeing a cross-harbor freight tunnel"

(Construction of any new freight or passenger tunnel or bridge can take years if not decades by the time all feasibility studies, environmental reviews, planning, design, engineering, real estate acquisition, permits, procurements, construction, budgeting, identifying and securing funding is completed. This is before the project reaches beneficial use.

The project has been championed by Manhattan-Brooklyn Rep. Jerrold Nadler for 30 years. After all that time, it has yet to progress beyond the National Environmental Policy Act review process. In theory, it might move thousands of trucks on a daily basis off the roads and onto railroad tracks for significant portions of the journey between New Jersey and Long Island. But it reminds me of the long-forgotten proposed tunnel between 69th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and St. George, Staten Island.

The concept was to extend subway service from Brooklyn to Staten Island. Ground was broken with entrances at both ends in the 1920's, but the project quickly ran out of money and was abandoned to history. When living on Shore Road in Bay Ridge, friends and I would look to no avail for the abandoned site, which was filled in decades earlier. Flash forward almost 90 years and we have the proposed cross-harbor rail freight tunnel.

The proposed Cross Harbor Freight Tunnel may be just another in the continuing series of feasibility studies and environmental reviews sponsored by various governmental agencies and public officials over decades. They generate some money for consultants along with free publicity for elected officials who promise a bright future but all too often move on to another public office before delivering. You are frequently left holding an empty bag with unfilled promises.

Just like the Brooklyn-to-Staten-Island subway, don't count on seeing shovels in the ground before the end of this decade. You may never see completion of any cross harbor freight tunnel.)



Me, "The problem is we don't use the newest tunneling technologies. Obviously, digging an under harbor tunnel would be expensive. We should be thinking instead of using the Norway's idea of simply floating under harbor tunnels. These would be tunnels that would be held in place underwater by pontoons. You wouldn't have to worry about digging out underground tunnels that can cost in the billions of dollars. Instead, you would connect underwater tunnels that would lay close but not totally on the harbor's water bottom. It would be a submerged floating tunnel built in segments with each segment pre-cast and floated into place. Other types of submerged tunnels have been expensive because they have had to have had a trench dug, the section submerged into it and then covered with gravel. The norwegian technique wouldn't need this option. But I guess with all construction there are unforeseen obstacles to getting it built. If the author of the article is doubting a cross harbor tunnel will ever be built, then you have to wonder, what if he is right?"