Construction workers have built a support to Tonnelle Avenue at the designated entranceway to the ARC Tunnel Construction site in North Bergen, in this September photo.TRENTON — Responding to a request from U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the federal Department of Transportation has agreed to return about half of the $271 million it is asking the state to repay after Gov. Chris Christie canceled the Hudson River tunnel.
If the state pays the $271 million, Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood wrote to Lautenberg that $128 million of that would be placed in the state's Congestion Mitigation Air Quality account to be used on future projects. The federally-administered CMAQ program provides funding for states for projects, like mass transit and emission reductions, that aim to improve air quality.
The $271 million remains due Dec. 24.
"The Governor's disastrous decision to kill the ARC tunnel put New Jersey taxpayers on the hook to pay back $271 million to the federal government for money the state already spent on the project," Lautenberg said in a statement. "I have been working since the day Governor Christie unwisely killed the project to clean up this mess and reduce the cost to taxpayers in our state. I am pleased that the Federal government has agreed to cut the ultimate cost to our state nearly in half - by $128 - million and I will continue to look for other ways to ease the fallout from the Governor's ill-advised decision."
Known as the Access to the Region's Core, or ARC, the tunnel would have added a route for NJ Transit to enter Manhattan and alleviated a bottleneck in rail traffic between New Jersey and Manhattan.
Christie, citing the possibility of cost overruns of $2 billion to $5 billion, scrapped the project in October .
Since the federal transportation office paid for some of the initial work, when Christie cancelled the project he was informed the state needed to repay the federal government. Christie vowed to fight the bill and hired Washington-D.C. power firm Patton Boggs, a high powered, Washington-based law and lobbying firm.
When contacted by e-mail, Stuart Pape, a Patton Boggs attorney, said the firm had no comment
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