President Biden vowed Tuesday that there’s finally light at the end of the tunnel for 200,000 often-delayed, city-bound train riders — but it’s still more than a decade away.
During a speech at Manhattan’s underground West Side Yard rail complex, Biden touted $292 million in funding from his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will help pay to install $643 million worth of concrete casing from Penn Station to the Hudson River for a second tunnel to the Secaucus Junction station in New Jersey.
Biden called the eventual completion of the $16 billion tunnel a “critical step for everything else we’re going to do in the corridor — and rail, period.”
The president’s sweeping, $1 trillion infrastructure package will pay for $8 billion toward the construction of the new tunnel.
“It’s a multi-billion-dollar effort between the states and the federal government,” he said. “But we finally have the money and we’re gonna get it done. I promise you we’re going to get it done.”
The 80-year-old president cautioned, however, that “it’s gonna take time” — and he wasn’t exaggerating.
Work on the river tunnel isn’t to start for more than a year, in fall 2024, with completion scheduled for sometime in 2035, barring any delays.
Officials have wanted to add an extra tunnel under the Hudson River for at least a generation because of the crush of commuters riding New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains along the “Northeast Corridor” between Washington, DC and Boston.
The existing, two-track tunnel was badly damaged by flooding during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and breakdowns in electrical systems often cause cascading delays across the system.
A previous plan, called Access to the Region’s Core, was proposed in the mid-1990s and would have spent $8.7 billion to build a new tunnel and a new terminal for NJT trains beneath Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square.
Construction began in 2009, but the project was killed in 2010 by then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who diverted funds to pay for highway repairs instead.
The tunnel plan is part of a larger initiative called the “Gateway Program,” which would also replace New Jersey’s breakdown-prone, movable Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River, connecting Newark and Secaucus.
Additionally, it would add a new looping stretch of tracks so NJT can add service to Penn Station on lines that now terminate in Hoboken, allowing commuters a one-seat ride to Midtown Manhattan.
Those riders now have to transfer at Secaucus for a train to Penn Station.