The Jersey Junction configuration provides the most seamless connection possible to all commuter rail lines existing or contemplated in New Jersey, plus access to Jersey City and Lower Manhattan by way of the Bergen Arches, and the Hoboken Ferry Terminal and Lackawanna Station with its extensive storage and station trackage. Thus it must be considered the essential "given" in contemplating any future-oriented scheme for commuter rail in the New York-New Jersey Region - though it would not be necessary to build the whole station/interchange concurrently as a single grand project: a lot of it already exists.

In 1995  I attended one of the first scoping meetings for the ARC Project in New Jersey, and presented at least one copy of my 8-1/2 x 11 tracing from a Hagstrom map showing a god's-eye-shaped Jersey Junction, with a line to Penn Station and another line branching from the Bergen Hill curve to Grand Central. It was suggested (and fully expected by many, I believe) that an NJ Transit line to Grand Central would be built first. Neither of the alignments was mentioned in any scoping document that I know of. In any case it is not necessary to remove the entire coal-fired Hudson Generating Plant in order to arrange a right-of-way through the property, but a plan to make PSE&G whole while introducing modernized generating facilities in a slightly altered configuration is hardly unimaginable

Several alternate versions are contemplated or exist for addressing the issue of the power plant. One, involving a crummy jog in the NEC configuration shown here, is possible - to avoid the tall parts of the furnaces. Or, a more direct route that would yet pass over the same area might be considered. The new line should by all rights take precedence.

There's you're Gateway!  (where the six tracks of the NEC pass under the Main Line)
 

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Large platforms (green) serve as the main public spaces of the station, with cable staid tents providing areas of shelter concentric with the curves in the pointy areas of the platforms. Constructed clear-glass and obscuring partitions would define central areas of platform space having passenger amenities and so on. The track configuration has several fly-overs, fly-unders and same-grade connecting tracks with the aim of providing seamless connections while avoiding directional conflicts. At the point where the Bergen Arches fly-over enters the NEC there are four levels of tracks. Jersey Junction would obviate the awkward "West Side Wye and Loop" agglomeration planned in Secaucus, with it's circuitous steep grades and dicey low-speed/high-speed timing issues resulting in travel times probably longer than just walking within the station to make the transfer. And (much discussed in terms of how to do it) the Wye-and-Loop does not give access to the West Shore Line, but Jersey Junction does. (KMZ files with specific numerical indications and an explanation of grades is available upon request.)

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I am very hopeful that you will see the folly of building a fourteen billion dollar tunnel without benefit of additional station interface in Manhattan. To this end I will await your prompt response in making arrangements with me to pursue the above described plan in some detail and at your expense. Failing that, legal action will be taken.

 

Very Truly Yours,

Bruce W. Hain - New York, NY