In the interest of understanding how to better prioritize major public infrastructure and how to pay for it the City Club’s Urban Design Committee’s Infrastructure Working Group has organized a panel to discuss the Regional Rail Trunk Line. It chose the trunk line because additional rail capacity under the Hudson River connecting New Jersey and Penn Station is essential, because there are alternative ways to configure and operate the new facilities to maximize the public benefit and minimize the cost, and because it is unclear how the new tunnels will be paid for.
On Friday 19 April Hunter College hosted the panel at Roosevelt House before a full auditorium. Dan Garodnick moderated, John West presented the situation (see attached Trunk Line – 5.ppt), Richard Baron spoke for RPA, Karim Ahmed spoke for ReThinkNYC, and George Haikalis spoke for IRUM. For more on what the panelists proposed explore:
- Making the Connection: http://www.irum.org/connectn.htm
- RPA: http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Crossing-the-Hudson.pdf
- RethinkNY: http://www.rethinknyc.org/
- IRUM: http://www.irum.org/20170907_GPDC_board_meeting_statement.pdf
How do you think the trunk line should be configured and operated?