q******s
发帖数: 7469 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 USANews 讨论区 】
发信人: quovadis (my shit is your gourmet), 信区: USANews
标 题: 2007年统计:新州commute去纽约工作的年薪平均$207，000
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Wed Nov 3 14:43:52 2010, 美东)
板上好像是有几个住新州的吧，比如说那个姓L的大水车，你拿到平均了吗？
Christie Killing Tunnel Erases Wages, Risks Montclair (Update1)
2010-11-03 17:03:49.454 GMT
(Adds Christie spokesman’s comments beginning in 11th paragraph)
By Dunstan McNichol and Terrence Dopp
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Governor Chris Christie cut New Jersey off from $
5 billion in New York-based salaries and diminished its future role in the
world’s second-largest regional economy when he stopped construction of a
Hudson River rail tunnel he said taxpayers couldn’t afford.
The first-term Republican canceled the $9.8 billion tunnel, the country
’s largest federally supported infrastructure project, on Oct. 27. New
Jersey, which already faces a $10.5 billion budget deficit next year, couldn
’t accept a “blank check” on cost overruns that might exceed $5 billion,
said Christie, 48.
Christie’s move means the state will have to repay the U.S.
government $350 million already spent on the project, forgo $3 billion in
additional federal aid and lose the 3,000 construction-worker openings the
tunnel was projected to generate for the next decade. Canceling the tunnel
will also cost New York and New Jersey 44,000 jobs and $4 billion in
additional income that would have come through economic growth, according to
a 2008 study by New Jersey Transit.
“This tunnel project is vital to the long-term health of the region
and to New Jersey,” Gil Medina, a former state commerce commissioner and
executive managing director for real- estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, said
in a Nov. 1 telephone interview from his Secaucus office. “We have to allow
for an efficient flow of people, goods and materials through the region.”
Property Threat
The most direct impact from the cancellation of the tunnel will be felt
by homeowners near rail lines who would have gained swifter access to
Manhattan, said Sean Maher, associate economist at West Chester,
Pennsylvania-based Moody’s Analytics.
“That’s one of the main sources of demand for real estate in northern
New Jersey, as a bedroom community,” Maher said.
“That will most likely slow the area’s population growth even further --
and it’s already slow. It also reduces property values.”
Home prices in communities such as Montclair that are served by New
Jersey Transit rail lines offering direct access to Manhattan’s Penn
Station rose an average of 6 percent last year, said Jeffrey Otteau,
president of the Otteau Valuation Group Inc. in East Brunswick. The increase
came even as real- estate prices statewide declined by 2 percent, he said.
$18 Billion Increase
The Regional Plan Association, a New York research group that supported
the tunnel, said home values within 2 miles (3.2
kilometers) of train stations on lines running into the project would have
increased by $18 billion, generating $375 million in additional property-tax
collections each year.
“Rail access increases demand and it increases prices,”
Otteau said in a telephone interview. “If you build this project, it’s
reasonable those communities expand.”
About 373,000 New Jersey residents already earn paychecks in New York,
according to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. The
typical New Jersey commuter was paid $205,000 in 2007, the last year for
which New York has statistics.
“New Jersey’s credit card is maxed out,” Michael Drewniak, a
spokesman for Christie, said in an e-mail today commenting on the tunnel
cancellation.
“The state does not have billions of extra dollars on hand, an
undeniable consequence of continuously reckless spending and borrowing
decisions and poor planning by past administrations,” he said. “The
Governor has repeatedly stated his recognition of the benefits of the
project, but that does not change the current fiscal mess, which must be
fixed before we could move forward with something of the size and cost of
this project -- which, by the way, was too heavily weighted in funding
responsibility for New Jersey to begin with.”
More Jobs
Completion of the so-called ARC tunnel, for Access to the Region’s
Core, would have added room for 25,000 additional daily commuters, according
to the Federal Transit Administration. That equates to $5 billion in
earnings, based on the 2007 salary averages. The New York region’s $1.3
trillion economy is the world’s second-largest, behind Tokyo, and ranks
15th among countries, Medina said.
New Jersey’s economy, with 3.8 million jobs, has grown to exceed New
York City’s 3.7 million over the past 60 years, said James Hughes, dean of
the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University in New Brunswick. That means an additional link to the city is
not as vital as it was in the past, he said,
Others say New Jersey, which already has $37.7 billion in outstanding
debt and another $100 billion in unfunded pension and retiree health
benefits, can do without the tunnel.
PATH Trains
New Jersey commuters will still be able to reach New York City’s most
lucrative jobs in the financial sector through existing lines served by the
Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s PATH train line, particularly if
firms locate in office space under construction at the World Trade Center
site in Lower Manhattan, Hughes said. New Jersey Transit trains currently
reach Penn Station through two century-old tubes.
At $10.9 billion, the midpoint estimate provided by the U.S. Department
of Transportation last month, the scrapped project would cost almost $440,
000 for each of the 25,000 commuters it added to the transit system, said
Gus Milano, executive vice president of closely held Hartz Mountain
Industries.
“Does that make sense? I don’t think so,” said Milano, whose firm
owns 38 million square feet of commercial and multi- family property
centered near the New Jersey entrance to the proposed tunnel.
‘Effectively Bankrupt’
New Jersey’s share of the latest $9.8 billion cost of the project was
to be $3.3 billion, including $1.25 billion in bonds backed by New Jersey
Turnpike Authority tolls, according to the Federal Transit Administration.
Beyond that, the state was scheduled to be responsible for all costs beyond
the $9.8 billion -- a bill Christie said on Nov. 1 could reach $8 billion to
$10 billion.
“Is it the best use of our resources when the state is effectively
bankrupt? No,” said Milano. A North Bergen, New Jersey, building Hartz
owned was among the 13 properties New Jersey Transit acquired through
condemnation for the tunnel project, state records show.
“If we redeploy the resources, we could improve the business climate,
” Milano said. “If we can reduce the state budget and reduce taxes,
industry will come to the state.”
School Construction
The tunnel cancellation isn’t the first time Christie has scaled back
construction. He has also taken a knife to New Jersey’s $12.5 billion
school-building program.
During the governor’s first nine months in office, construction
spending by the state Schools Development Authority totaled $210 million,
compared with $483 million during the first nine months of 2009, according
to the agency’s latest monthly financial report.
At the same time, the number of construction jobs involved in the
program has dropped to 672 from 1,570 a year earlier, according to the
authority report.
Back at the cancelled railroad tunnel’s New Jersey entrance, the mood
has darkened at construction-union halls, such as Teamsters Local 560 in
Union City, as the job outlook has worsened.
Workers who’ve been winding down assignments on the $1.6 billion
Meadowlands football stadium were counting on the tunnel to provide
continued employment, said Tony Valdner, president of the 4,000-member local.
“I was looking at from 60 to 80 trucks a day on that job,” he said.
“It’s a long-term thing.”
Lowest Since 1996
Employment in the state’s heavy construction industry is at an annual
average of 15,400, the lowest since 1996, according to state Department of
Labor records. Construction employment is projected to remain below 2008
levels through 2020, even if the ARC Tunnel were built, Nancy Mantell,
director of Rutgers Economic Advisory Service, said at a seminar on the New
Jersey economy today.
Building the tunnel would have generated as much as $9 billion in
additional economic activity in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut during
construction, including about $4 billion in wages, according to data filed
with federal regulators. Work on the project also would have generated $1.5
billion in local, state and federal taxes, the environmental impact
statement said.
“These are jobs that were anticipated were going to be constructed and
worked on from 2011 through 2016,” Robert Briant Jr., chief executive
officer of the 1,000-member Utility and Transportation Contractors
Association, said. “It’s work that will not be replaced.”
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