A summer of pain for NJ commuters who rely on rails to NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — The Hudson River is 1,500 yards wide where it flows between Manhattan and Weehawken, New Jersey, but it can feel like 150 miles for the hordes of commuters who make the crossing via a pair of century-old rail tunnels that constitute one of the worst transportation bottlenecks in America.

In addition to two new rail tubes, it would involve replacing a major rail bridge, building 10 miles of new track, and taking over an entire Manhattan block, now filled with skyscrapers, to make way for a new rail hub.

Amtrak, which owns the existing tunnels, has tens of billions of dollars in deferred maintenance to take care of elsewhere in the Northeast and will probably never have the money to pay for the project on its own.

In fairness to New Jersey Transit, many of the delays are due to the deteriorating conditions on the Northeast Corridor, a rail line controlled mostly by Amtrak.

Mechanical problems happen elsewhere on the aging rail corridors that serve the Northeast, but at the Hudson crossing, every problem is magnified because there are so many passengers and so few alternative routes.

A light-rail system, the PATH, also crosses the Hudson farther downriver, but it has limited capacity, and getting there involves a major detour for many New Jersey commuters.

Commuters got a taste of what that would look like in July, when an electrical failure dramatically reduced the tunnels' capacity for nearly a week, causing hours-long delays during the morning and evening rush.