By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday night he would consider a plan to extend 7 train service to his state.
The plan, which would provide a link between Secaucus Junction, one of New Jersey’s major transit hubs, and the New York City subway system, was floated by the Bloomberg administration last week in response to Christie’s termination of a multi-billion dollar Hudson River rail project.
Christie made the controversial decision to end the project last month, citing concerns about billions in projected overruns.
But Christie said he saw promise in the alternative 7 train proposal, which would cost an estimated $5.3 billion, roughly half the price of the abandoned Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) project.
“I think it’s a much better idea than the ARC,” Christie, who said he had not yet spoken to Mayor Michael Bloomberg about the idea, told New Jersey’s Millennium Radio.
Asked if he would consider forwarding state funds to the project, Christie answered, “Sure.”
Still, the Republican politician kept his remarks about the project to a minimum, repeatedly taking the opportunity to defend his cancelation of the ARC project and attack New Jersey’s Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who blasted him for the decision.
“They said nothing was going to be done for generations, nothing would happen, there’s no other way we could do this,” Christie said of his critics on the radio program.
“[Yet] within weeks, we have New York City coming forward with an idea and you know why? Because it’s good for New York City, and once they knew that New Jersey wasn’t going to be the stooge that paid 70 percent of the cost of this project [with] no contribution from them, and they weren’t going to get that access of New Jerseyans going to New York, now they’ve decided to step up and come forward with another idea.”
Christie added that he preferred the project to ARC because it give New Jersey residents direct access to Penn Station and the East Side of Manhattan.
The plan to extend the No. 7 train to New Jersey could serve as an addition to construction that is currently underway to connect the train line to 34th Street and Eleventh Avenue – a $2.1 billion effort to spur development around Hudson Yards on the far West Side.
