Mayor Bloomberg’s election year opposition to the proposed cross-harbor freight rail tunnel does not of itself spell doom for the project. The tunnel plan has reservoirs of support throughout the NYC political, civic, business and transportation establishments, and there will be time after the mayoral election this November to sort out city government’s official position on the plan.

The project probably faces bigger problems than the mayor’s need to make up with local activists angry over the possible impacts of greater train frequency on the Bay Ridge Line in Brooklyn and trucks serving the proposed rail yard in Maspeth, Queens.

One is money. If considerable funding is not forthcoming in a federal transportation bill to continue significant work on the project, it is hard to see where the resources will come from. NYC and NY State are struggling to finance basic infrastructure upkeep and pay for needed transit system expansion, with little sign of an emergent consensus favoring large scale revenue measures to support infrastructure needed to keep the downstate region competitive in the 21st Century.

Another is winning support in New Jersey. One end of the tunnel will necessarily be in the Garden State. The former mayor of Jersey City vociferously opposed it, some NJ transportation planners remain unconvinced that the project will work and there are few vocal advocates for it west of the Hudson.

The local opposition in NYC also cannot be dismissed out of hand, as the mayor’s recent statement shows. The tunnel project has largely proceeded ahead of a broad public understanding of the swelling tide of trucks facing the city and the region, or at least has been disconnected from growing concern and anger in the city about that problem. Outright opposition to the project will have to be balanced by other constituencies with a broader understanding of the freight movement challenges facing the city, and developing and organizing those will take time.

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