Christie Administration Pushing For New $20 Billion Commuter Tunnel

Governor Christie and his administration support building the newly-proposed $20 billion Gateway tunnel under the Hudson River to bolster capacity and improve the commute for residents along the Northeast Corridor.

Governor Christie, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, and New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Robert Menendez met in Booker’s Newark office Tuesday to discuss ways to pay for the project, which would include building a new underground train station in Manhattan.

“Transit across the Hudson River carries an enormous and increasing share of this region’s workforce and economy, and it is clear that something must be done, and done now, as commuters continue to endure serious daily challenges that come with an aging infrastructure,” the officials said in a joint statement released Tuesday. “The state of New Jersey supports the Gateway project and is committed to developing a framework with the Federal government to begin it. As commuters can attest, we cannot afford further delay.”

New York Senator Chuck Schumer said last week that the Gateway project would cost $20 billion, significantly more than the proposed, and now defunct, Access to the Regional Core tunnel, The Record reported.

Booker, Menendez, and Christie said they would work with Foxx to obtain a federal grant to help fund the project and work on “other funding and financing options,” the statement said.

The U.S. Department of Transportation would potentially cover 80 percent of Gateway’s costs and the final 20 percent would be funded by local sources, including New York, New Jersey, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

State Senate President Stephen Sweeney proposed that the entire local portion be funded by the Port Authority at an annual cost of $150 million.

“That’s a good deal,” Sweeney told The Record. “There’s just no excuse for not doing it. Our entire economy depends on it.”

The Access to the Regional Core (ARC) tunnel was to help improve the commuting times for people in the Northeast Corridor, the busiest in the United States. The tunnel would have ended at a newly-constructed station seven stories below 34th Street in Manhattan, Veronique Hakim, executive director of NJ Transit said recently.

But, the project failed to “live up to everything it was advertised to be” and taxpayers were on the hook for the project’s entire $13.7 billion price tag, which didn’t even include nearly $800 million estimated to replace the 100-year-old portal bridge over the Hackensack River.

“Our next tunnel project must work for everyone, benefit everyone, and be paid for by everyone,” Hakim said.