WPCNR GUEST EDITORIAL. By Alexander Saunders, The North Ring. March 22, 2008: As we continue to consider the transportation crisis in the New York region (and your very thoughtful article by Mr. Ferlauto certainly gives a good review of the process to date). We should also learn from the experience of others.
All around the globe major transportation infrastructure has been recently completed using new technologies not considered in the Tappan Zee study.
From Caracas to Cairo to Antwerp to Moscow to Kuala Lampur to Shanghai and hundreds of other places along the way, major underground projects have provided transportation without environmental detriment. The Tappan Tunnel would, like these many other projects, allow complete freedom of design and routing to accommodate the many modes of transport, including cars, trucks, rail freight, commuter rail, and high speed rail. Yes, trans can travel at 200 MPH and do, in Europe, Japan and China.
Underground construction requires no real estate takings, has no visual or sound footprint, and the constructin process does not delay ongoing traffic on the existing roads. Underground construction is rapid, reliable, and economical. World-Class projects everywhere are coming in for less than 1/10 of prices mentioned for the Tappan Zee.
Incremental costs per mile for large diameter tunnels have fallen precipitously and are now often as low as $50 Million per mile, or $350 Million to cross the Hudson from Palisades Mall to Elmsford, Exits 12 to 8. Two Tunnels would be used for a total of $700 Million and would provide 9 lanes of traffic and 2 heavy rail lines. Trucks could be accommodated on rail.
While we have been discussing for over 10 years, (the Tappan Zee problem), if we had moved forward when the Tappan Tunnel was designed in 2002 by Dr. Martin Herrenknecht, the world's greatest expert in tunneling, (he has hundreds of projects active around the world, we would be driving across the Tappan Zee Tunnel now.
If we had accepted the realities of our available money, we could have done the truck on train system using a single bore in one year for approximately $250 Million. This is embarrassingly the same cost that the EIS and redecking projects have come to. It is impossible to price the millions of man hours and gallons of fuel wasted while we have let the world pass us by.
It is even more impossible to price the thousands of people who have sickened from the air pollution on I-287 and I-95 in the past 10 years.
WE MUST MOVE FORWARD AND THE ONLY PLACE TO DO IT IS UNDERGROUND.
(Mr. Saunders represents The North Ring, an organization that has long promoted a beltway system of expressways and tunnels combined to provide efficient bypasses to New England and Long Island around the New York-Connecticut-New Jersey metropolitan area.)
