The cost of the New York City-area Gateway rail tunnel project climbed to $16.1 billion and the expected start of construction was pushed to 2024, its overseer said Wednesday. The plan is to seek more federal aid to cover the rising cost.
(Bloomberg) — The cost of the New York City-area Gateway rail tunnel project climbed to $16.1 billion and the expected start of construction was pushed to 2024, its overseer said Wednesday. The plan is to seek more federal aid to cover the rising cost.
The new estimate, with finance charges, was 14% higher than last year’s projection to build a passenger rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, and rehabilitate Amtrak and New Jersey Transit’s only existing link. The start of major construction, once proposed for mid-2023, now is expected in mid-2024, according to a statement from the Gateway Development Commission.
The tunnel is anticipated to be in service by 2035.
Half the cost was expected to be covered by the federal government, and the rest by New York and New Jersey, with contributions from Amtrak and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The commission now will seek additional US funding under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It expects a full funding grant agreement in early 2024, with construction starting later that year.
Mitch Landrieu, President Joe Biden’s infrastructure chief, said in an interview with Bloomberg in June that the US Northeast Corridor rail line will receive “a lot of attention” as far as spending, and called the Gateway plan “a cathedral project.”
The Northeast Corridor services a region that generates 20% of gross domestic product, and its century-old tunnel beneath the Hudson River has been decaying since a floodwater inundation in 2012.
The commission attributed Gateway’s rising cost to factors including inflation and “time lost from political delay” during the former administration under President Donald Trump.
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