The Cross Harbor Tunnel will move our region forward

The Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel will improve rail freight infrastructure by connecting New Jersey and New York under New York Harbor.

The tunnel would solve these problems and many more that our region will face in the near future:

• Remove over one million tractor-trailers a year from streets throughout the region (in every NYC borough and across NJ), making a huge contribution to solving road congestion and wear and tear issues. It would also allow better movement of emergency vehicles, which is critical to our safety. If we do not build this tunnel, we will instead see our already dangerously clogged streets overrun with a staggering increase freight trucks.
• Reduce asthma-causing pollution, and help to solve environmental health issues, which are among the worst in the nation, by reducing particulates released from freight trucks.
• Create 23,000 new long-term jobs, and over 6,000 construction jobs, with family-sustaining wages and benefits.
• Act as a key engine for economic growth. If we do not build this tunnel, we will put an immovable lid on economic development. Freight volumes coming into the New York City and east-of-Hudson region are expected to increase by more than 70% in the next 20 years. Without a tunnel, the region could come to a virtual standstill.
• Stem the loss of manufacturing jobs and help us grow new high-wage, high-tech, green manufacturing jobs. Taking over a million trucks off the streets will make it less costly to do business here, so our notoriously high-priced manufacturing and consumer goods will be cheaper. Even our food would be fresher and cheaper.
• Provide national security benefits, since goods could still move into the City even if the bridges are closed to trucks and cars. As nearly all of our goods come over the George Washington Bridge, one bomb-threat to that bridge could isolate us from the goods we need.

The Tunnel: A Critical Investment for our Future

The Cross Harbor Tunnel Project has the highest benefit to cost ratio of any major regional transportation project currently under consideration (2.2 to 1). Most infrastructure projects barely exceed 1 to 1. The conservative net present value of the benefits is approximately $10.5 billion. In addition, the federal funding for this project will not compete with transit projects, since the tunnel has been designated as a Project of Regional and National Significance.