(The Center Square) – The governors of New York and New Jersey on Monday touted a “milestone” in the massive $16 billion Gateway rail project, with the first phase of tunnel boring getting underway.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said building the new rail connection under the Hudson River has “been a dream for over a generation” but comes after a hard-fought battle with the Trump administration over federal funding for the project.
“We fought and beat efforts from the Trump administration to halt the Gateway project and today, that dream becomes a reality, with state of the art machinery operated by expert union workers starting their journey through soil and bedrock under the Hudson to Penn Station,” Hochul, a Democrat, said in remarks. “This is a historic day for New York and a clear demonstration of our ambitions to once again be a state that dreams and builds big.”
During the first stage of the construction, a pair of boring machines will carve a nearly one-mile underground path through the Palisades in New Jersey, officials said Monday. The two machines will excavate nearly 5,100 feet of tunnel through solid rock between North Bergen and Weehawken, they said.
Once that section is completed, a second set of boring machines will work on a section that will run beneath the Hudson River to Manhattan, according to Gateway officials.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who also spoke at Monday’s event, pointed out that the current tunnel under the Hudson River dates back to the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt and was considered “state of the art” when it was first constructed.
“Anyone who’s endured the hours-long delays in the current tunnel can tell you, it’s no longer state-of-the-art,” Sherrill said in remarks touting the boring machine technology. “With the help of this machine we will finally deliver the modern, reliable infrastructure that our residents deserve. It’s a mechanical marvel.”
The key construction phase gets underway roughly two weeks after the Trump administration said it was dropping its appeal of a federal court ruling blocking its attempt to cut funding for the Gateway tunnel and other infrastructure projects in the New York and New Jersey region.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull back federal funding from the Gateway tunnel project, warning it will become a “boondoggle” for taxpayers without federal intervention.
Last October, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced that federal funding for the Hudson Tunnel was “under administrative review” to determine if the project included any diversity, equity or inclusion initiatives that the Trump administration has sought to ban from federally funded construction projects.
A lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James and acting New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport claimed the Department of Transportation’s decision to withhold the funding was not because of noncompliance with laws but because the President Donald Trump is “engaged in political retribution” against the states.
In June, U.S. District Court Judge Jeannette Vargas sided with AGs from both states ruling that the funding freeze “flagrantly” violated federal law and blocked the DOT from blocking the money. Vargas had previously issued an injunction requiring the funding to be released after the project was briefly shut down, and workers laid off temporarily. The Department of Justice opted not to appeal against the ruling, despite claiming it would.
The Gateway project, years in the making, calls for renovating the 1910 tunnel, which carries about 200,000 weekday passengers on Amtrak and NJ Transit beneath the Hudson between New Jersey and Manhattan.
New York and New Jersey have agreed to split the 30% local share of tunnel construction costs, a move required to apply for federal funding.
The upgrades are aimed at increasing capacity on the Northeast Corridor line between Newark and New York City and easing a bottleneck of rail traffic coming to and from the city.
