6 events in Passaic County with a date

Lowering The Price

Feds downsize plans to repair Amtrak rail bridge

By: Colleen Wilson
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Amtrak's project to repair the Dock Bridge - a vertical-lift rail crossing in North Jersey and one component of planned upgrades to make Northeast Corridor rail service more reliable - is being downsized by one-third, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
..... The $375 million rehabilitation of the 90-year-old bridge was to include repairing the structural steel, installing rails and replacing the movable parts, repairing concrete piers, replacing fenders and installing an anti-corrosion protection system to slow degradation of the bridge structure.
..... Construction was expected to take place between September 2023 and September 2028.
..... Now, the scope of the project - which is will underway, with work taking place as recently as this month [04/2025] - is being downsized by $140 million, according to U.S. Transpiration Secretary Sean Duffy. the project's completion will also be accelerated by two years.
..... "The revised scope of the Dock Bridge rehabilitation project will ensure critical safety and reliability elements but remove unnecessary aesthetics costs like enhance lighting and defer some rehab work where structural elements still have a useful life," the statement said.
..... U. S. Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, wants answers on why the project was downsized. The bridge, which crosses the Passaic River between Newark and Harrison along a route used to access Penn Station in Manhattan, is used by NJ Transit passengers trains as well as Amtrak.
..... "This project isn't some new initiative - it's already in motion, funded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and designed to fix a longstanding chockpoint on one of the heavily traveled rail corridors in the country,' Pallone said.
..... "The Trump administration owes New Jerseyans a clear explanation," Pallone said. "what exactly is being cut? Why now? And who exactly is being delaying repairs to a 90-year-old bridge that thousands of commuters rely on every single day?"
..... Amtrak had perceived a $300 million grant for the project through the Federal Railroad Administration's Northeast Corridor Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program.
..... The U.S. Transportation Department did not respond to questions about what parts of the project will be eliminated, what will happen to the $140 million, and whether that money would be spent on another project in Amtrak's long queue of overdue repair and rehab projects.
..... Questions also remain about what will happen to the local match money provided by Amtrak, NJ Transit and the Port authority of New York and New Jersey. When agencies apply for certain federal grants, the grant award is for 80% of the total construction cost, and the remaining 20% is a match provided by the local groups sponsoring or involved in the project.
..... Amtrak threw in $70 million to provide part of the local match for the Dock Bridge project. NJ Transit and the Port Authority are expected to contribute match dollars, but those amounts have not been determined yet.
..... The Federal Transportation Department did not answer a question about whether some of the match money Amtrak fronted would be paid back or directed to another project in need of funding, like the Harrison Fourth Track project. this project would move one of PATH's westbound tracks so that a fourth Northeast Corridor track for Amtrak and NJ Transit could be built through the aria of the Harrison station.
..... Amtrak did not apply for federal grant funding for the Harrison Fourth Track a few years ago, in part because New Jersey did not commit money for its portion of the match.

More 'recoping' to come?

..... this is second project in the New York-New Jersey region involving the national passenger railroad that is going in a new direction at the behest of the trump administration. Last week, [04/16/2025] Duffy announced he was kicking the Metropolitan Transportation Authority off a complicated project to reconstruct New York Penn Station, to which the agency had dedicated years of planning.
..... In that case, the MTA was awarded a $72 million grant form the Federal railroad Administration to work on design and engineering plans to renovate the chronically crowded station. Amtrak was separately awarded a nearly $72 million grant to work on design and engineering plans for a possible expansion of Penn Station.
..... But last week, [04/16/2025] Duffy announced a "rescoping and slashing" of Amtrak's grant and put Amtrak - "backed by USDOT" - in charge of the Penn Station renovation project.
..... With the reduced allocation, "Amtrak can pursue a mater developer to examine both reconstruction and potential expansion of the station, Duffy said. He said this new direction would have taxpayers $120 million, but he declined to say how.
..... The two grants combined were worth about $144 million when awarded. A reduction of 4120 million would leave Amtrak with $24 million, a shoestrign budget for engineering a redesign and possible expansion of the busiest - and arguably most complicated - transpiration hub in North America.
..... The grant slashing in the Penn Station and Dock Bridge projects may not, in fact, save taxpayers money but may effectively throw it away if local match money provided by the MTA, Amtrak and NJ Transit is not returned or dedicated to another project.
..... This all comes weeks after Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardener was pushed out by the Trump administration, a Reuters report said. Shortly before that, Elon Musk, the billionaire advising the president about ways to reduct costs and increase efficiencies in government, said Amtrak should be privatized.
..... The economic impact of the infrastructure projects along the Northeast Corridor - including Dock Bridge, Penn Station and others - are profound.
..... The Dock Bridge project is a small part of the much larger gateway program. The biggest project in the program is to build a new two-track rail tunnel under the Hudson River between North Jersey and Manhattan to improve rail service for Amtrak and NJ Transit riders. Once the new tunnel is built, work will began to rehabilitate the existing tunnel, which was badly damaged by Superstorm Sandy.
..... For the full Gateway program to be successful - reducing delays, providing - all the Gateway projects must be completed, so even these smaller projects have their impact.
..... Investing in the full Gateway program, which would cost tens of billions of dollars across 11 projects, could yield $445 billion in economic benefits between 2023 and 2060, said a report released by the regional Plan Association on Wednesday. [04/23/2025] In fact, 46,000 jobs would be created nationally on an annual basis and 24,000 in the region, the report said.
..... The full gateway program includes the $16 billion tunnels rehab and construction; the $2.3 billion Portal North Bridge across the Hackensack River and its potential future twin Portal South bridge; Hudson Yards concrete casing; Penn Station capacity expansion; Secacus expansion and Bergen loops; NJ Transit storage yard; Sawtooth Bridge, Harrison Fourth Track and dock Bridge.
..... Kate Slevin, executive vice president of the Regional Plan Association, said the economic stimulus would occur from the actual infrastructure construction, but also the improved and expanded mobility that would follow form doubling rail capacity on the Northeast Corridor between Newark Penn State and New Yoke Penn Station, the busiest stretch of passenger rail in North America.
..... "These big infrastructure projects - the components of them are built across the country and assembled in other parts of the country, so you have economic benefits not just for our region but also throughout the nation,' Slevin said.
..... "It;s also worth noting that the Northeast Corridor supports about 20% of the country's gross domestic product," she said. "So anything that improves mobility and access along the Northeast Corridor is going to have indirect benefits for the national economy as well."
..... This repost follows another released by the Gateway Development Omission, the bistate agency overseeing the tunnel projects, the highlighted how the first five of nine constructions contracts have already generated more than 30,000 jobs, $4.5 billion in economic output and $1.7 billion in wages in the region and beyond.
..... So far, Slevin is glad to see several of the Gateway program projects moving forward - eve with a reduced scope.
..... "we think it;s passive that Dock Bridge is moving forward. We've always supported reducing costs in large infrastructure projects," Slevin said. "The faster we can see the full Gateway program built, the better."

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