If the Bloomberg administration has anything to say about it, the 7 train could now take subway riders as far as Secaucus. In order to get some of the $3 billion in federal money earmarked for a rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan, city officials have come up with a lower-cost version of the $8.7 billion tunnel that Chris Christie killed and then sorta considered maybe resuscitating once he found out about the federal funding. The new plan, which estimates say will cost $5.3 billion, will still involve building a new tunnel under the Hudson River but will piggyback on existing work being done on the No. 7 line. The idea was originally pushed in the eighties and could help redevelop the far West Side. Christie’s spokesperson declined to comment on the plan but tried to make the issue sound as fancy as possible: “We are open to ideas for solving the trans-Hudson transportation dilemma.”
