Despite a two week reprieve, the Hudson River train tunnel, which would have eased congestion on the much traversed New York and New Jersey route, will die its death today.

New Jersey Governor Christie is expected to terminate the multi-billion dollar project today — arguing that the project was way over budget, and New Jersey cannot afford it.

Christie blamed the federal government’s unwillingness to increase its share of the costs, NJ.com reported.

Currently the project already has a little less than $9 billion in funds, which includes $3 billion from the federal government and another $3 billion from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The State of New Jersey was supposed to come up with the rest of the funds.

Though the project was canceled two weeks ago, Christie was willing to give it a grace period after U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asked him to consider alternatives.

Christie said the decision he has made is in the best interest of the taxpayers of the state.

The project, which was supposed to be one of the country’s largest infrastructure projects, would have doubled rail capacity between New Jersey and New York City.

Rumor has it that Christie wants to use New Jersey’s share of the money – $2.7 billion — to replenish the state’s almost empty transportation fund. The governor refuses to raise the gas tax to pay for it.

Though several officials, including LaHood, have claimed that the low-end range of the cost to build the 8.8-mile (14.2- kilometer) path under the Hudson River is $9.775 billion; the mid-range estimate is $10.9 billion and the high end is $12.7 billion, Christie said overruns could be up to $5.3 billion, which he refused to pay.

In a statement, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) blasted the governor’s decision:

“The federal government, at my urging, presented Gov. Christie with a number of financing options that would limit and even eliminate New Jersey’s responsibility to pay for cost overruns on the ARC Tunnel,” Lautenberg’s statement said. “The federal government demonstrated its strong commitment to building this tunnel, but it was clear from the beginning that Gov. Christie planned to kill this project no matter what.”

Construction began on the tunnel last year, and about $600 million have been spent on it already.

It is ridiculous that partisan politics has taken over a project that has been in the works for over 20 years and would have helped thousands of commuters between New York and Jersey.

The tunnel was also estimated to have created 6,000 construction jobs and another 40,000 new jobs after completion, according to the NY Times.

Re-building our infrastructure is the best way to get Americans back on the job market, and yet it’s sad that a refusal to raise our gas taxes to fund highway repair projects, or to implement other congestion pricing methods (which would have been a surefire way to pay for the difference), has led to cancellation of a mass transit project that thousands of state residents actually need.

Yonah Freemark in his blog Transport Politic suggests that given the circumstances, the best thing for New Jersey to do at this point is rejig its current infrastructure.

Instead of giving each and every rider a comfortable seat, Freemark, suggests that the train system “remove a dozen seats or so per car and replace them with standing areas”. This would make the trains capable of carrying up to 2,000 people apiece (from its current capacity of 1,400 people) — giving it a huge capacity increase at a very low cost.

Amtrak could also add one or two more passenger cars to its trains to increase capacity, Freemark writes.

Given that ARC has finally died its death, it’s time to think of alternatives to make the New Jersey/New York commute easier, and this is definitely one way to start.