New Jersey governor kills Hudson River rail tunnel project

The nation’s biggest public works project, a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, was canceled Wednesday when the governor of New Jersey announced that his state didn’t have the money to pay its share of projected construction overruns.

Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who took office in January promising fiscal restraint, said New Jersey couldn’t afford the additional costs that could swell the project’s nearly $9-billion price tag. He had previously rejected any gasoline tax increase to pay for the project and canceled it, then said he would reconsider after the federal government this month asked to explore ways to save it. On Wednesday, he said there was no turning back.

“What the proponents of this plan are asking me to do on behalf of the citizens of this state is to hand them over a blank check,” Christie said at a news conference in Trenton. “I simply will not do that. ... I am done. We are moving on.”

New Jersey and New York have been connected for a century by a two-track rail tunnel that reached capacity several years ago and has jammed Penn Station in Manhattan with 250,000 commuters a day making round trips. In addition, the old tunnel is used for freight and Amtrak traffic. The new tunnel, almost two decades in the planning, was designed to break the bottleneck.

Christie has argued repeatedly that New Jersey couldn’t afford to pay for the construction overruns. The state’s share of the project was estimated at more than $2.7 billion. The federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were each to contribute $3 billion.

Construction on the tunnel began last year, but the costs began climbing and Christie’s advisors were projecting the state would have to kick in an additional $2.3 billion to $5.3 billion.

The tunnel was designed to double the capacity for New Jersey Transit during peak hours, as well as remove 22,000 vehicles from the road crossings. Officials estimated the project known as Access to the Region’s Core would provide 6,000 construction jobs immediately and as many as 44,000 jobs after its completion in 2018.

Christie ordered a cost review in September, suspending work on the tunnel while the estimate was completed. He questioned the project about two weeks ago but backed off at the request of federal officials.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) denounced the governor’s decision.

“It was clear from the beginning that Gov. Christie planned to kill this project no matter what,” Lautenberg said in a statement.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was also critical of the decision, issuing a statement calling it a “devastating blow to thousands of workers, millions of commuters and the state’s economic future.”

geraldine.baum@latimes.com