New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo touted a report over the weekend that suggested the aging Hudson River tunnels could be rehabilitated, rather than the ambitious replacement project – drawing the ire of New Jersey officials and the state’s Congressional delegation.
The study released Monday by London Bridge Associates suggested that they could be rehabilitated at a much lower cost than the $11 billion price tag for a set of two new tunnels.
“We have a report that says they can be rehabilitated,” Cuomo said at a press conference over the weekend. “There’s also a desire by Amtrak and many people to build new tunnels to have additional access to New York, which I think is a good idea. But one is not the enemy of the other.”
Former Gov. Chris Christie, in 2010 scuttled the proposed ARC tunnel, citing cost overruns. It’s since been rebranded as the Gateway project, a $30 billion overhaul of infrastructure projects across both New Jersey and New York City.
Amtrak, which owns the tunnels and the Northeast Corridor Line that goes through them – carrying 150,000 commuters a week prior to COVID-19 – warned that the damage from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 severely worsened the condition of the tunnels.
Although New York and New Jersey struck a financing deal for the tunnel under then-President Barack Obama to split the costs, the project was nonetheless stonewalled for the entire term of his GOP successor, President Donald Trump.
The president’s opposition has been widely linked to his political tensions with Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat and vocal advocate of the project.
Trump finally committed over the summer to $766 million for the Portal North Bridge, a swing bridge that sits several miles south of the tunnel entrance. It’s been famously considered a choke point for the route because of how often it becomes stuck after allowing boats along the Hackensack River to pass underneath it, snarling rail traffic.
But President-elect Joe Biden’s avid support of Amtrak and public transit in general has renewed hopes that a tunnel could finally see a breakthrough in the near future.
Gov. Phil Murphy and a federal delegation tour the Hudson River Tunnel on Jan. 28. – EDWIN J. TORRES/GOVERNOR’S OFFICE
“We need four tunnels under the Hudson and we need to do it in a way that does not disadvantage and further impact the lives and the experience of the commuters from New Jersey under the Hudson to New York,” Murphy at a Monday press conference. “It’s crystal clear what we need: we need four tunnels.”
Cuomo suggested that the rehabilitation of the tunnels would follow a similar progression as the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s rehab of the L train route, which entailed nighttime and weekend closures rather than a total shutdown.
The existing tunnels would not be rehabilitated until 2028 under the current plan, but Amtrak officials said they might be able to attempt at least some of the repairs in the short-term, thanks to cratering ridership and telecommuting habits stemming from the pandemic.
“The long list of repairs and improvements needed in our century-old tunnel includes certain tasks that will require a full closure of the tubes for some period of time,” Amtrak Chairman Tony Coscia maintained still in a Monday statement.
Coscia
“The sooner we build a new tunnel and can move rail traffic out of the 110-year-old tubes, the sooner we can comprehensively rebuild them and deliver the modern, reliable, four-track system the region and the nation need to remain competitive in the 21st century.”
Kevin Corbett, president and chief executive officer of NJ Transit, which uses the tunnels to move commuters between Manhattan and New Jersey, said that LBA’s report was “highly speculative” and in need of a “much more detailed evaluation before declaring them practicable.”
“[NJ Transit] will not consider any solution that adversely impacts service reliability or our ability to maintain current rail service levels to and from Penn Station New York.”
Jerry Zaro, the New Jersey trustee for the Gateway Development Corp., which would actually oversee the construction, said that the suggestion that “we can tear up old track in the middle of the night, change the grade of the trackbed, lay new track, connect that back into the old track, clean up the mess and be ready for 200,000 rush hour commuters the next morning” was “utterly fantastical.”
