Christie, feds to discuss how to fund new Hudson rail tunnel

Gov. Chris Christie and the state’s Senate delegation are scheduled to meet with state and federal transportation officials on Tuesday morning to discuss the urgent need to plan, fund and build new Hudson River rail tunnels. The meeting at Sen.

Cuomo says the outlook for a new tunnel “isn’t especially bright”.

Now federal grants – which the states would not have to pay back – are officially on the table, the joint statement said.

Gardner said at the hearing that Amtrak’s tunnel problems would exist even if the ARC were on schedule, but he also answered yes when asked if the tunnel would have provided a “safe haven” to New Jersey commuters by giving them a backup. It was the first meeting of such high-level leaders to discuss Gateway, a project that eventually could double the number of trains between New Jersey and New York.

Amtrak officials have identified expanding train capacity between New Jersey and New York as one of the company’s most pressing needs.

“The tunnel work is like taking a two-lane highway and making it four-lane”, said Drew Galloway, Amtrak’s chief of planning and performance on the Northeast corridor. Electrical wires corroded by Superstorm Sandy’s floods prompted hours-long delays last month that highlighted the tunnel’s condition and previewed what could become a chronic problem if nothing is done.

With the new and repaired tunnels, commuters will be able to avoid the crush that is expected to come with rising ridership in the region over the next 15 years. Detectives are working closely with the family, and the search for Chelsea is active, the department said.

The students assigned to the University of Hawaii apartment where a man fell out of a window to his death while trying to get a distraught man off a 14th floor ledge will have the option to get new housing arrangements. “I’ll go out there with a shovel myself, but we need the money”.

Cuomo did not attend Tuesday’s meeting but he issued a statement saying he strongly supports the project. Now Cuomo said the federal government is only promising loans.

Democratic state Sen. Robert Gordon, the committee chairman, stated the tunnel challenge is of adequate regional and nationwide significance that the federal government ought to make a dedication “on the order of the interstate freeway system, the Manhattan Undertaking, the Panama Canal”.

Staff Writers Shawn Boburg, Herb Jackson and Melissa Hayes contributed to this article.