The commissioner is hereby authorized, subject to the provisions of this act, to contract with such carriers as shall be necessary to undertake improvements to capital facilities to provide connecting passenger service between the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey and service operated by or in connection with the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (formerly the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad) by rerouting the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey passenger trains to operate between the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Newark and terminal stations on the Central Railroad Company right of way by utilizing the Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks and the Pennsylvania Railroad System tracks easterly of Cranford Junction, and to consolidate the passenger service now operated by the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Railroad over the right of way of the New York and Long Branch Railroad, by eliminating the service operated from Bayhead Junction by the Central Railroad Company and supplementing that operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad and rerouting all passenger trains over the Pennsylvania Railroad right of way to the City of Newark or to the City of New York provided that the public share of the cost of these improvements does not exceed the total of $3,000,000.00.
N.J.S. § 48:12A-18