After a long, documented history of doom and gloom, stops and starts, and being used as a political football, the Hudson Tunnel Project – set to build a second set of tubes connecting New Jersey and New York – now appears to be on track.

“2023 was a vitally important year for the Hudson Tunnel Project,” Kris Kolluri, Gateway Development Commission CEO wrote in his end-of-year note to GDC commissioners. “This year, together with all of you and our partners, the Gateway Development Commission moved HTP from aspirational to unstoppable.”

If you have read NJBIZ’s coverage, you have surely seen some of the remarkable progress made on the long-scrapped, left-for-dead project by GDC, which is overseeing what is described as the nation’s most urgent and critical infrastructure project.

A few notable milestones in 2023 included the beginning of early-stage construction in both New Jersey and New York; more grant funding commitments; contracts awarded; outreach events with the business community; building out the GDC organization itself for improved governance structure and technical, legal and financial capacity; and much more.

“We are entering 2024 on a strong footing, with critical early works components in progress, construction management agreements in place, and the organizational capacity to tackle the next big challenges,” Kolluri wrote to the GDC commissioners.

Recently, the NJBIZ Editorial Board sat down for a discussion with several GDC commissioners to learn more about the latest developments, the next steps, areas of focus and challenges – as the project continues to gain steam in 2024.

The participants from GDC included New Jersey Commissioner and co-Chair Balpreet Grewal-Virk, New York Commissioner and co-Chair Alicia Glen, and Amtrak Commissioner and Vice-Chair Tony Coscia.

NJBIZ Editor Jeff Kanige opened the discussion by noting that train riders have been patiently waiting for a better day in terms of improving the current, outdated and, often, unreliable infrastructure they depend on.

“They hear about the fact that there is a lot of infrastructure spending going on. They know that the Gateway Project is on its way. But what can you tell them? What would you point to that happened in the past – say 12 months – to give them the sense that the service that they’re experiencing now is going to get better?” Kanige asked. “That their lives, their commuting lives are going to better? Because it’s a big part of your life when you’re taking the train every day in and out of New York City.”

“The first thing to say is there is absolutely commonality of both unhappiness – but also the desire to improve the system,” said Glen, who stressed that the commissioners do not want riders feeling hopeless about their experience.

Glen noted that while New Jersey and New York are sometimes at odds, the two states are absolutely aligned on this project. “The fact that you can see actual construction on both sides of the river, I hope, will begin to make people say that we’ve gone through ideating and politicking to actually doing it,” Glen explained. “And I hope that will give folks in New Jersey some real hope that this is now finally happening.”

Grewal-Virk emphasized the importance of the project. “It’s focusing on, of course, upgrading rail connections between New Jersey and New York and, ultimately, the entire Northeast Corridor,” she explained. “We all know the importance of that corridor and what it means to this local region, the Northeast, and the entire nation – the contribution it has to our GDP. This project is important because it alleviates current congestion issues that we talk about often – and certainly provides commuters with more reliable and efficient transit options.”

“And our goal is to, ultimately, double the capacity under the river, so that we can have that often talked-about peak of 48 trains an hour,” she added.

Coscia’s message for riders and commuters longing for system upgrades and improved experience is that the process is now inexorable. “Which is a big deal. We are no longer talking about something that, sort of, might happen – but something that’s going to happen,” said Coscia. “We are very much fully engaged in moving this forward.”

He said that the reason that this project and others like it never come to be is because the stakeholders often get too overwhelmed by the process and what it will take. “It’s going to take too long – require too much cooperation between different levels of government, different entities. The numbers are too big,” Coscia explained. “The enormity of the project has gotten leaders in the past to try to kick the can down the road and avoid having to deal with it. I think we’re fortunate that has stopped. We’ve turned the hourglass over. We’re building this thing. We can now look at timelines where we believe we’re going to be able to place into service critical components of infrastructure that have been lacking for generations. And as a result of that, the overall mobility of the system is going to be enhanced.”

Coscia believes that commuters will start to see, year-by-year, a greater level of reliability, enhanced capacity and efficiency. “And yes, I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take,” said Coscia. “But I think those long-suffering commuters, they can actually see, sort of, light in the tunnel at this point.”

From there, the discussion shifted to the process of building up GDC’s organization itself – a critical step in being able to manage and coordinate a project of this size, scope and complexity.

“As soon as Kris Kolluri, our CEO, came in and really ramped up the efforts on growing GDC as an organization in every area – financial, legal, technical, etc. – we got more done last year than I think ever before. We have tremendous momentum because of that,” said Grewal-Virk, who added that because of the professionals who have been added – every benchmark and deadline has been hit.

“This is an opportunity for people to work on and be part of this extraordinary and important national project,” said Glen, who noted that she has seen a noticeable uptick of interest from public service professionals who want to be part of this project – and GDC. “People see this as an extraordinarily professional, well-run organization. There’s always going to be a little politicking. At the end of the day, the three of us are rowing in the same direction, and our two governors are rowing in the same direction. And we have an amazing president and a senator, a majority leader, and this is actually going to get done. Think about how many projects people have worked on in their life that never get done. So, I think that we have built an infrastructure internally that is also attracting the amount of talent to make this even better than we think it could be.”

“I was there [GDC] in the very beginning – and we certainly had some years of, I would say, not the greatest progress,” Coscia reflected. “It was not helped by the fact that the person in the White House was trying to kill the project as opposed to helping it.”

That turmoil during the Trump administration led to difficulties in recruiting the talent needed to execute this type of project – with Coscia noting they hired top headhunters and recruiting firms.

“We’d get these great candidates – and the candidates would say, ‘OK, let me see if I understand this correctly. You’re standing up an enterprise where there has to be basically consensus between the governor of New York, the governor of New Jersey, Amtrak, and the federal government. And, by the way, the president holds press conferences every two weeks saying how he wants to kill this project. And you want me to quit my job,’” Coscia recounted.

He added that the environment has shifted dramatically to the one now – which Coscia described as America being able to build big things. “We can take on big projects. We can deal with this governance system that has multi-jurisdictions,” said Coscia, who pointed out that transit riders just want to get from point A to point B. “We’re the ones who create all those barriers. And so, this is an enterprise that’s breaking down those barriers. That says a lot for how far we’ve come.”

The commissioners also addressed past and present political realities – and took a look at the future, given how events are trending for the upcoming presidential election, with the Republican candidate likely to be the same person who previously tried to kill the project. And the 2025 gubernatorial race in New Jersey, with Gov. Phil Murphy, a key project supporter, term-limited.

“Is that a concern or is there enough momentum – are things far enough along where it’s not the kind of concern that it maybe was three years ago?” NJBIZ Managing Editor Jessica Perry asked.

“We get asked that often,” said Grewal-Virk. “We’re fortunate that today and over the past couple of years – that hasn’t been the case. I truly believe that’s why – because of all the synergies that exist today – we’ve gotten this far. I think everyone feels the same – that we’ve gotten far enough that no matter what happens in the future, I don’t think that’s going to change. We have gotten so much work done, quite honestly, just in the last year.”

Grewal-Virk said that while she is cognizant of the political realities, she is not concerned. “I think we’ve done enough that no matter what the next administration is – it’s really hard to say that this isn’t happening,” she continued. “I think we’re past that already.”

“The full-funding grant agreement, which is sort of like the centerpiece of this whole infrastructure – like scaffolding, as I like to think about it when I think about big projects that I work on. There’s always a centerpiece to the scaffolding – and then you sort of build around it,” Glen explained. “But the key piece of the scaffolding is signing the full funding grant agreement. And we are on schedule to do that. Nobody is sleeping – and neither Tony nor Balpreet nor I are going to let any crazy politics get in the way of signing that in June.”

With that, Glen said, the project gains what she described as “inevitability.” The full funding grant agreement is essentially a contract that lays out the terms and conditions of federal funding for transportation projects.

“It will really take such catastrophic politics – I refuse to believe we’re going to have a change,” said Glen, stressing that the full funding agreement is key. “That’s why all of us have been literally working harder at this probably than our day jobs – because of the urgency. Then you are plug-and-play, I believe.”

Because of the past difficulties with the different iterations of this project – and getting burned multiple times, Coscia said that the stakeholders thought a lot about these very issues and situations – with a lot of thought and very careful design.

“We are already in the ground. We will be in the ground and fully funded this summer,” said Coscia. “And there is no turning back. I’m telling you that the price tag of turning back would be so much greater than going forward at that point. I think that the momentum here is because of all of the things that Alicia and Balpreet have mentioned – the sort of inevitability of this because it makes so much sense. It is essentially the anchor to the mobility system in the most important region in the country – and everybody realizes this has got to get done.”