The federal government is on track to provide $6.88 billion, the highest amount ever awarded to a public transit project, to build a second rail tunnel under the Hudson River to New York City, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Wednesday.
Mr. Schumer, the Democratic majority leader from Brooklyn, said he planned to announce the grant in the city on Thursday. A White House aide confirmed that the Department of Transportation planned to notify the tunnel project’s sponsor, the Gateway Development Commission, of the decision this week.
The twin-tube tunnel is part of Gateway, a massive infrastructure project widely regarded as the most important in the country. The new tunnel would complement a troublesome pair of single-track tunnels that opened in 1910 and have been in steady decline since Hurricane Sandy flooded them with saltwater in 2012.
The federal commitment allows Gateway planners to seek companies that can build a tunnel parallel to the deteriorating tunnels, a project expected to cost more than $16 billion before completion in 2035. Gateway planners still hope to receive more funding from other federal programs to increase Washington’s share of the total cost to at least half.
The governors of New York and New Jersey agreed last year to split the local share of the tunnel’s construction costs equally. That agreement was a critical precursor to securing federal funding for the project. But a signed deal with the federal government is not expected until early next year.
Regional transportation officials have been in a hurry to secure a federal commitment to Gateway while President Biden is in office and Democrats are in control of the Senate. Gateway is Mr. Schumer’s pet project. Mr. Biden, a longtime rider of Amtrak trains between Washington and his home state of Delaware, has been a staunch supporter.
“This has been the biggest hurdle in getting this kind of very large investment from the federal government, and here it is,” Mr. Schumer said. “This is real, and it means there’s no going back now.”
Politics aside, transportation officials say the tunnel is urgently needed as the existing tunnels need to be healed from the lingering effects of their flooding from Hurricane Sandy. Amtrak, which owns the tunnels, plans to close those tracks one by one for repairs once the new tunnel is up and running.
A few years ago, commuter trains arriving from New Jersey at Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station were packed with passengers lined up in the aisles and vestibules. The pandemic has sharply reduced the number of commuters, many of whom will not return to the office five days a week. Still, analysts from the Regional Plan Association predicted last year that “demand for trans-Hudson travel on the heaviest travel days is likely to be at or above pre-Covid levels” by the time the new tunnel is completed.
If any 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 reduced by 75 percent during rush hour, Amtrak said. Mr Schumer and other elected officials said reductions would severely curtail commercial activity along the East Coast and could devastate the US economy.
“The Gateway Program is a vital economic driver for New York and the nation,” Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democratic governor, said in a statement.
Philip D. Murphy, New Jersey’s Democratic governor, said in a statement that he would work with Washington officials to “secure the remaining funding needed to complete the most urgent infrastructure project in the country.”
Beleaguered commuters in the New York area may think they’ve heard this all before. Two decades ago, another project to build a train tunnel under the Hudson received a $3 billion commitment from the Federal Transit Administration.
Construction on that tunnel, known as ARC, began in 2009. But a year later, Chris Christie, then New Jersey’s Republican governor, canceled the $8.7 billion project because his state couldn’t afford the potential cost overruns. Thereafter, New Jersey repaid $95 million of the $271 million the federal government provided.
Kris Kolluri, CEO of the Gateway Development Commission, said he was confident that construction of the tunnel would begin next year and it would not end this time.
“I’ve never seen this level of collaboration,” he said. “There is no daylight between the state, local and federal partners.”
In October, the commission asked the Federal Transit Administration to provide $6.65 billion through its Capital Investment Grants program. Mr Schumer said the grant exceeds that request by more than $200 million as construction costs have steadily risen.
Mr Kolluri said he believed the commission’s estimated cost of $16.1 billion was solid, even though the transport company already indicates the cost could be as high as $17 billion. The commission is still awaiting a response to its request for $3.8 billion from a separate pool of federal money.