Gateway Tunnel Project Gets Federal Funding Boost, Is Now Underway – NBC New York

Lawmakers and transit officials are promising 95,000 construction jobs, $20 billion in economic impact and vowing: There will be no turning back.

“This time it’s real,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer exclaimed Monday.

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For more than a decade, it has been a leading backer of the $16.1 billion Gateway Hudson Tunnel Project, which includes a new rail tunnel linking New York and New Jersey and is scheduled to open in 2035.

After 12 years of pressure and delays, work on the Gateway project is finally underway, News 4’s Andrew Siff reports.

“It won’t happen overnight,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, whose predecessor, Chris Christie, ended the region’s previous attempt to build a new tunnel after questions about the cost arose in 2010. “But when it finally happens, it will transform millions of lives.”

Fourteen years later, construction on both sides of the river is underway. On Monday, heavy machinery was on West 30th Street stabilizing the ground for even larger machines to be brought in to dig the new tunnel.

The tunnel boring machine, which will excavate most of the undersea tunnel, is expected to begin turning in late 2024 or early 2025. The machine will launch on the New Jersey side and operate through 2027. Another tube, starting in Weehawken, would overlap somewhat and be dug between 2026 and 2028.

“This is on the scale of the Erie Canal,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who agreed with Murphy to fund about 30 percent of the project. The federal share approved (70 percent) is larger than originally promised, and Amtrak will also contribute that $12 billion portion. New York, New Jersey and the Port Authority will contribute the remaining $4 billion.

Sen. Chuck Schumer announced that the Gateway Tunnel project will receive $6.8 billion in federal funding, News 4’s Adam Kuperstein reports.

On Monday, Schumer held up a bag of cherries to indicate that it was “the cherry on top” for governors now that the burden on local taxpayers is not as high as feared.

“This is fully funded and that means it’s guaranteed to go ahead,” said Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton.

The new tunnel project comes after the 110-year-old tunnels currently in use were damaged by Superstorm Sandy.

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Gateway supporters say that when it opens, there will be crucial rail resiliency and redundancy to avoid commuting nightmares like the gridlocked trips that plagued NJ Transit and Amtrak passengers this summer.