Gateway Tunnel project secures needed funding to move forward "full steam ahead"
NEW YORK - A major hurdle has been cleared in getting the Gateway Tunnel project done.
It is now "full steam ahead" for the major infrastructure project after the federal government finalized another $6.88 billion in funding. Officials say that's the largest federal commitment to a mass transit project.
That completes the $12 billion federal investment in Gateway. The project will replace a delay-prone, 114-year-old tunnel that has one track in and one track out connecting New York and New Jersey.
"It's official: We are moving full steam ahead with the largest and most consequential infrastructure project in the nation," Gov. Phil Murphy wrote on X. "This is a big win for commuters on both sides of the Hudson."
"With a new, modern, 21st century tunnel, and a full rehab of the existing tunnels, so that we will ultimately have four good-as-new tubes into, out of and through New York," said Stephen Sigmund of the Gateway Development Commission.
"The full funding agreement for the $6.88b CIG grant is the puzzle piece that completes $12 billion in federal funding for the Hudson Tunnel Project, the largest ever federal commitment to a mass transit project," the Gateway Development Commission said in a statement.
Gateway Tunnel project said to be long overdue
The project, Sigmund says, is years - even decades - overdue.
Ground has already been broken on both sides of the Hudson River. Securing the last piece of the funding puzzle allows crews to start heavy construction this year.
"Including the tunnel boring machines, the machines that essentially create, bore through and create the tunnels, all the way from the Palisades to Manhattan," Sigmund said.
The new tunnel is expected to take about ten years to complete, and should be open by 2035. Once it's complete, crews will move forward with rehabbing the existing tunnels, which initially opened in 1910.
Once all four tracks are up and running, the new and updated tunnels will connect around 200,000 people daily.
"I think it's a great thing. I think we need more back and forth. I mean, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the George Washington Bridge, all of it is always too filled with cars. Like, way too filled," Newark resident Jody Gazenbeek-Person said.