VIDEO: Long-Delayed Gateway Tunnel Under Hudson River to Get $6.9B in Grant Funding
Mon July 10, 2023 - Northeast Edition #15 New York Times & CEG
The federal government is on track to give $6.88 billion, the largest amount ever awarded to a mass-transit project, for the construction of a second rail tunnel under the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York City.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader from Brooklyn had planned to make the announcement July 6, but word of the award broke a day earlier, according to the New York Times.
A White House aide confirmed to the newspaper that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) planned to notify the tunnel project's sponsor, the Gateway Development Commission, before the end of the week.
The two-tube tunnel is part of Gateway, a massive infrastructure project that is widely considered the most important in the country. The new tunnel would supplement a troublesome pair of single-track tunnels that opened in 1910 and have been steadily deteriorating since Hurricane Sandy flooded them with salt water in 2012.
The federal pledge will allow Gateway's planners to start seeking companies to construct a tunnel parallel to the damaged ones, a project that is expected to cost more than $16 billion before it is completed in 2035. Gateway officials still hope to receive more funding from other federal programs to raise Washington's share of the total cost to at least half.
The governors of New York and New Jersey agreed in 2022 to an even split of the local share of the cost of building the tunnel. That agreement was a critical precursor to obtaining federal funding for the project. But a signed deal with the federal government is not expected until early 2024.
Regional transportation officials have been in a hurry to secure a federal commitment to Gateway while President Biden is in office and Democrats have control of the Senate.
Gateway is a pet project of Schumer's, and Biden, a longtime rider of Amtrak trains between Washington and his home state of Delaware, has been an ardent supporter.
"This was the major hurdle, getting this kind of very large investment from the federal government, and here it is," Schumer said. "This is real, and it means there's no turning back now."
Action Needed to Ensure Train Service Between N.Y., N.J.
The Times noted that, politics aside, transportation officials have said for years that the new Hudson River tunnel is urgently needed because the existing tunnels must be cured of the lingering effects of their inundation by Hurricane Sandy.
Amtrak, which owns the tunnels, plans to shut those tracks for repairs, one at a time, once the new tunnel is in use.
A few years ago, commuter trains arriving at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan from New Jersey were jam-packed with passengers standing in the aisles and vestibules. The pandemic sharply reduced the number of commuters, many of whom are not expected to return to offices five days a week.
Still, analysts at the Regional Plan Association forecast in 2022 that "trans-Hudson travel demand on the heaviest travel days is likely to be at or above pre-COVID levels" by the time the new tunnel is completed, the Times reported.
If one of the existing tracks had to be closed before the new tunnel is available, train capacity between Penn Station and places west of the Hudson would be cut by 75 percent during rush hours, according to Amtrak. Schumer and other elected officials said that reduction would sharply curtail commercial activity along the East Coast and could devastate the American economy.
"The Gateway program is an essential economic engine for New York and the nation," explained Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of New York, in a statement.
Across the river, New Jersey Democratic Governor Philip D. Murphy, released his own statement saying that he would work with officials in Washington to secure "the remaining funding necessary to complete the most urgent infrastructure project in the country."
Will a New Tunnel Construction Succeed This Time?
Beleaguered commuters in the New York region may think they have heard this all before. Two decades ago, a different project to build a train tunnel under the Hudson received a $3 billion commitment from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA).
Construction of that tunnel, known as ARC, began in 2009. But a year later, Chris Christie, then the Republican governor of New Jersey, canceled the $8.7 billion project, saying that his state could not afford the potential cost overruns. Afterward, New Jersey repaid $95 million of the $271 million the federal government had provided.
Kris Kolluri, chief executive of the Gateway Development Commission, told the Times he was confident that construction of the tunnel would begin next year and that there would be no stopping it this time.
"I have never seen this level of cooperation," he said. "There's no daylight between the state, local and federal partners."
Last October, the commission asked the FTA to provide $6.65 billion through its Capital Investment Grants program. Schumer said the grant exceeds that request by more than $200 million because construction costs have been rising steadily.
Kolluri believes the commission's estimated cost of $16.1 billion is solid, even though the transit agency is already signaling that the cost could rise to $17 billion. The commission is still awaiting a response to its request for $3.8 billion from a separate pot of federal money.
