Officials met Wednesday in Hoboken to talk about how to advance and finance extending the Hudson-Bergen Light rail to Route 440 and Jersey City's western waterfront, but what's happening with bringing trains to Bergen County as promised 15-years ago?
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez is hoping a tour of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail by federal officials will help make the case for extending it to the Hackensack River waterfront in Jersey City.
Menendez, D-NJ, led Federal Transportation Administration and North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority officials on a round-trip tour Wednesday of the 21-mile light rail line to show them how it has spurred development.
Hudson County officials hope the tour will prompt the feds to look favorably on future plans to extend the light rail line to Jersey City's western waterfront. Officials also visited the northern end of the light rail line in North Bergen and talked about plans to extend it 10 miles north to Englewood.
"What we wanted was for the FTA to see is what has been accomplished with light rail and why it makes sense to extend it and why an application for funding should be highly-rated," Menendez said, during a press conference after the morning tour. "Today was about priming the pump for when New Jersey submits an application."
The "pump" is $2 billion in Federal New Starts money the FTA has for new transit projects, funding that has been tapped by many other states recent, except New Jersey, he said.
The most likely project, and the easiest to get off the ground, would be a quarter-mile extension in Jersey City, from West Side Avenue across Route 440 to the Hackensack River. That project has received environmental clearance. But the clock is ticking, because design would need to start by 2017.
"This is easier to build than the further route," Menendez said.
The further route, a light rail expansion to Bergen County, which Menendez and other officials said they back, is a few steps further back in the process
In May 2013, NJ Transit approved $3 million for Jacobs Engineering of Morristown to finish the final environmental impact statement for extending the line 10-miles north of where it ends in North Bergen, extending the line to Englewood Hospital.
PLUS: How is NJDOT is making work zones safer for motorcycles?
That proposal calls for building seven new stations, at 91st Street in North Bergen, and in Ridgefield, Palisades Park, Leonia, and two in Englewood.
Hudson County Executive Thomas DeGuise, who is chairman of the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, said he has met with Bergen County officials and advised them to try to build the light rail line one stop at a time.
"Take small bites to eat the elephant," he said.
Part of the tour was to show off development that has been built and is under construction along the light rail and to talk about potential building of up to 8,200 units on a 96-acre superfund site on Jersey City's western waterfront. Negotiations are underway with developers about funding for construction of a light rail station there.
For both projects, the state would have to match the federal funds, Menendez said, which makes reauthorization of the federal Highway Trust Fund legislation and the state Transportation Trust Fund a necessity.
Environmental work on the Route 440 extension is complete and the total cost to build the extension is estimated at $213.9 million, said Jennifer Nelson, an NJ Transit spokeswoman.
"Both of these projects are considered high priority for NJ Transit, if new funding sources can be identified," Nelson said.
Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.