ARC Deadline Looms

by: Bill Orr

Thu Oct 21, 2010 at 10:17:44 AM EDT

In my diary of of October 8 Christie's Decision: Non-Transparent and Possibly Deceptive, I discussed his initial cancellation:

His press release says, "Today, Governor Chris Christie accepted the recommendation of the ARC Project Executive Committee to terminate the ARC Project." All members of the Executive Committee are political appointees.  In their memo the members say, "The FTA regional staff put forth a projected range of $10.9 to 13.7 billion."The memo provides no breakdown or substantiation of how this estimate was constructed. Nor does it point to a link that would help us understand the basis .... It appears the numbers that Governor Christie has been throwing around were only preliminary data and that the FTA is still in the process of completing its assessment.

So far it seems that the governor's cost overrun justification for canceling ARC was madel without legitimate, documented, finalized data. As Wisniewski says, "The governor should have nothing to hide. If he has no detailed cost analysis information, he should admit it. If he has it, he should let the people decide whether they're valid numbers." Hopefully, we will learn the truth, but if so, it will not be through a transparent process, but only through the wrenching OPRA mechanism.

With labor, materials, and interest rates extremely low because of unemployment, now is the time to push ahead with ARC. We should receive some word on the matter from the governor very shortly. Hopefully something will convince him to move forward or at least extend the deadline.  At this point his original basis for cancellation appears suspect, and one can only wonder whether he might decide to cancel ARC permanently with an equally flimsy and nontransparent rationale.