Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The “North River Tunnels” under the Hudson River between Weehawken, New Jersey and Pennsylvania Station, New York are passenger rail links that have been in service for 105 years and now require extensive refurbishing and/or replacement. These tunnels are vital links between NJ and NY, and by providing passage for Amtrak and NJTransit, for the entire Northeast Corridor (Boston to Washington, DC) as well. 

In 2012, Superstorm Sandy flooded one of the two tubes; in 2014 Amtrak CEO Boardman reported to the New York’s Regional Plan Association that the tunnels had a 20-year window before one or both requires closure, which would have extensive negative economic impacts through the interruption and rerouting of commuting, commercial, and leisure travel. 

Stakeholders have determined the tunnels must be closed and repaired, with new tunnels built. Since public support is essential to sustainable funding for this work, we fielded a sample survey using random-digit-dialing from a dual-sample-frame and collected data from 889 New Jersey residents. In so doing, we gauged the relative priority of the tunnel issue on the public agenda, as well attitudes toward two funding mechanisms: the issuance of state bonds and/or a user’s fee. 

Descriptively, the message is mixed: Over 80% report rebuilding the tunnels is “net important,” just under 60% are “net supportive” of a state bond issues, and just over 55% are “net supportive” of a user’s fee. Less positively, the tunnel project ranked 7^th —last—in “strong” support of issue importance, and while about 20% “strongly opposed” either revenue generating mechanism, only 8% “strongly supported” both funding mechanisms, and about 21% “strongly supported” one but “strongly opposed” the other. Since about half of the respondents demonstrated modest support or modest opposition to either funding mechanism, we infer that about half of the population is persuadable on this issue. 

To explore further, we created five categories based on respondents’ support for either, both, or neither of the two funding mechanisms: (1) supporting both; (2) opposing both; (3) favoring the bond, but not the user’s fee; and (4) favoring the user’s fee, but not the bond. The fifth group was (5) lukewarm to both funding mechanisms. 

Using this five-group categorization as the dependent variable, we ran a multinomial logit regression, using the lukewarm group as the reference category. We found that attitudinal categories about funding for tunnel rebuilding were generally consistent with expectations from the literature and, that by assessing the performance of each independent variable for each dependent variable category, we were able to determine a profile of the typical member of that category. This, in turn, provides insight into how to best craft attribute matching messaging to the respective categories about the vital nature of the tunnel issue.

We conclude by suggesting that the nature and combination of those attributes of pro/con tunnel funding mechanisms categories will inform policymakers as they build proactive risk assessments, and generate risk communication projects, to advise key stakeholder organizations and the public as a whole about the significance of the tunnel project.