Tunnel vision
Across the Long Island Sound, developer Vincent Polimeni has a vision for metropolitan New York. If built, his vision would be out of sight and extend some 18 miles, most of it laid deep beneath the sea floor of the sound.
Rerouting traffic around the aging bridges that now are Long Island”™s only highway link with New York City, his six-lane, three-chambered vision would connect the island”™s congested highways at Syosset with Westchester County at the intersection of I-95 and I-287 in Rye. Polimeni and his high-powered engineering and financial partners call it the Cross Sound Link Tunnel. Opponents have called it a project that should never get off, or under, the ground.
The proposed privately owned toll route would be the longest vehicular highway tunnel in the world, according to Randall J. Essex, tunneling director at Hatch Mott McDonald, the international engineering firm that would build it. Its construction technology has been used to build some the world”™s largest train and mass transit tunnels, including the Channel Tunnel, the so-called Chunnel linking England and France beneath the English Channel.
A conversation overheard at a hotel bar about the Chunnel launched the silk-suited visionary on his quest about three years ago. Polimeni is the founding president and CEO of Polimeni International L.L.C., a commercial office and retail developer based in Garden City with several retail properties in Poland. He said he has sunk about half a million dollars into initial planning to realize his vision, whose estimated project cost is $9 billion to $10 billion.
He expects to spend “a couple million more” this year on a traffic study of the proposed tunnel”™s regional impact by the New York State Department of Transportation. “I”™ve got the money,” Polimeni said with a smile and a shrug last week in White Plains.
Handling an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 vehicles daily by 2025, the tunnel would generate revenue through $25 one-way tolls for commuters and congestion pricing designed to encourage commercial vehicles to use it during off-peak hours. Proposed to be built with private debt and equity financing, the enterprise eventually would be offered to public shareholders on the New York Stock Exchange, said Polimeni, whose financial adviser on the project is Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.
“It should be profitable if we can ever get it done,” the developer said at a recent meeting of the Business Council of Westchester”™s area development council.
There”™s the rub for the developer and his private vision: getting it done. In Westchester, Polimeni heard from business people and municipal officials concerned the tunnel would add to rather than reduce the county”™s growing traffic congestion, especially in the I-287 corridor. He has heard those views before, he said, at public presentations on Long Island and in private meetings with officials in Westchester.
Project partners, however, point to its environmental benefits for a region whose traffic congestion and air pollution are expected to significantly increase by 2025. If the tunnel is open by then, they project fuel savings of 24 million gallons a year with the shorter commuting distances and reduced carbon dioxide emissions of 175 tons to 235 tons a day, with an overall 16.7 percent reduction in the region”™s smog within 25 years of the tunnel”™s opening.
Essex, the tunneling director, said the project”™s around-the-clock construction schedule would have a minimal impact on residential Westchester neighborhoods and traffic patterns on I-287 and I-95.
Truck traffic during construction would amount to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the current average daily traffic flow, he said. “In terms of daily flow on these interstates, it”™s imperceptible.”
Though the project would include adding eastbound and westbound lanes where the tunnel emerges at the intersection of I-95 and I-287, “We intend to build them totally within the footprint of the existing interstate intersection,” Essex said. Bus rapid transit could be added to the project”™s footprint too, though a rail line there would not be feasible, both he and Polimeni said.
Both on land and under the sound, “No impact,” Essex said of the proposed link, which as currently planned would consist of two 55-foot-wide bores with three traffic lanes each connected to a 38-foot-wide central service tunnel. “Totally stealth; out of sight, out of mind; we”™re all underground.”
Essex acknowledged, though, “Some people have said, ”˜You”™re going to turn 287 into the next Cross Bronx Expressway”™” by drawing more commercial traffic there via the tunnel. Some of those people were heard again at the Business Council”™s committee meeting.
“The biggest threat of this tunnel is to 287,” City of Rye Mayor Steven Otis said. “Every vehicle coming from this tunnel will be a new vehicle coming on to 287.”
“We view this as devastating on an economic, quality-of-life basis for this county,” Otis said of the proposed tunnel.
Tarrytown Mayor Drew Fixell told Polimeni, “You”™d almost be wasting your money” to go ahead with a detailed regional traffic study. “There”™s just no way this doesn”™t add traffic to a corridor that can”™t handle any more traffic.” Unless the tunnel was extended under Westchester County and across the Hudson River, “There”™s no way this works,” he said.
Essex said the tunnel partners might next take on the Tappan Zee Bridge corridor project, a more urgent transportation problem for Westchester that could be made worse by a Long Island tunnel link, as Business Council President and CEO Marsha Gordon noted at the meeting.
“I would second the notion that if you want to flip this thing over to the Tappan Zee Bridge, that”™s a good idea,” Fixell told the partners.
Mamaroneck Town Supervisor Valerie M. O”™Keeffe said the Westchester County Municipal Officials Association, which she heads, opposes the project. “We don”™t see how the air quality would improve in any way,” she said. “In fact, we think it would be worse in Westchester County.”
Business Council officials indicated they”™ll await the results of the tunnel traffic study before taking a position on the project. Still, Tarrytown-based architect Dennis S. Noskin called it “incredibly admirable” that the project was proposed as an entirely private-interest undertaking. Another area development council member, real estate broker Christopher O”™Callaghan, called it “interesting from a business perspective.” He suggested the direct commuter link with Long Island might encourage the commercial office development that Westchester has not seen in more than two decades.
“The bottom line is, will it increase traffic or decrease traffic?” Polimeni said after the meeting. That must be addressed next in the state study, he said.
With six traffic lanes in the tunnel, “We”™re going to be building 106 miles of new highway, and you won”™t see it,” he said. “Where else can you do that?”
The visionary checked his watch, then headed back across the bridges to Long Island.