Mid-town tunnel Comming? (Hudson, Lincoln: construction, price, lawsuits)

[eastguy]

$75,000,000 for moving towards construction of a Midtown tunnel under the Hudson to relieve capacity strains on the Northeast Corridor and the PATH and also increase access

[Fred314X]

I know there's a project to build a tunnel beneath the East River allowing LIRR access to midtown Manhattan. But what's this about PATH and a Hudson River tunnel? (You may be sure that if such a proposal exists, $75 million isn't going to cover a fraction of the job!)

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by eastguy

$75,000,000 for moving towards construction of a Midtown tunnel under the Hudson to relieve capacity strains on the Northeast Corridor and the PATH and also increase access

The first tube of the Lincoln Tunnel (today the center tube) was opened on December 22, 1937, at a cost of $75 million.

Although inflation probably means that $75M may be close to a billion dollars today, you would think technology would have made some cost savings advances over the last 75 years. Unfortunately, it seems as if the opposite has occurred since nearly every proposal is multiple billions of dollars.

The ARC tunnel project was $9.8 billion (before cost overruns)
The subway extension to NJ was also estimated to cost $10 billion.
The GATEWAY project for AMTRAK is estimated to cost $13.5 billion

I realize that these projects are a more complex than just the center tube of the Lincoln Tunnel, but it still seems as if the price has risen more than just monetary inflation.

[nybbler]

In 1937, labor was cheap (being the middle of the great depression) and you didn't have a sea of alphabet agencies and environmental do-gooders throwing up lawsuits at every turn.

Also 14.5 billion is for the whole project and not just the Gateway Tunnel, but I expect there will be major cost overruns.

[Kefir King]

I think for $75 Million the City might get plans for a tunnel and a nice wooden model and a nice thick study by a commisssion...and little else.