By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CITY HALL — New York Sen. Charles Schumer slammed New Jersey Gov. Christ Christie Tuesday for pulling the plug on a Hudson river tunnel that would have doubled commuter capacity between the two states.
"I believe pulling the plug on ARC was a terrible, terrible decision," Schumer said, according to remarks prepared for a Crain’s Breakfast Forum in Midtown.
Schumer said that, while he was "extremely sympathetic to the fiscal problems Governor Christie clearly faces," the tunnel would have benefited residents on both sides of the Hudson with shorter commute times and thousands of jobs.
"You think traffic on the George Washington Bridge and in the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels is bad now, just wait," he warned.
Christie made a final decision to kill the tunnel project in October, citing huge cost overruns that he said threatened to bankrupt the state.
Schumer also applauded Mayor Michael Bloomberg for putting forward a proposal to extend the 7 Train to New Jersey, but said the idea may not be possible from an engineering perspective.
"Let's be honest — this is Mayor Bloomberg taking lemons, and trying to make a little lemonade,” he said, adding that the billions of dollars in federal funding that had been secured for the tunnel will likely not be offered again."
