ABSTRACT
The New York/New Jersey metropolitan area is one of the most densely developed areas in the United States. Within the trans-Hudson Midtown corridor, almost 300,000 people commute into Manhattan each weekday on various modes from counties west of the Hudson River. This demand has grown to exceed available capacity on the trans-Hudson transportation network which includes roadways, buses, ferries, PATH trains, and commuter rail to Penn Station New York (PSNY), the existing trans-Hudson rail tunnels, and within PSNY itself. The consequence is that NJ TRANSIT’s (NJT) options to provide additional rail service into midtown Manhattan during peak hours have been exhausted without major new infrastructure. Compounding the situation is that demand for additional public transportation solutions are certain to increase, as population and employment across the region grow. Recent projections for commercial development in Manhattan estimate more than 200,000 additional office-sector jobs will be created over the next two decades. Furthermore, maintaining a safe and secure rail system is the highest priority of rail operators. The post 9/11 attack security environment demands rail redundancy across the trans-Hudson
Midtown corridor, where one incident can quickly impact hundreds of thousands of commuters, to be critical.
