, Crain’s New York Business; March 5, 2018
It’s time to get realistic about the proposed rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan. As currently contemplated, the project is doomed. It won’t be funded by the feds, by state and local governments or by the private sector.
Both the size and the mission of the Hudson River tunnel—a crucial component of Amtrak’s Gateway Program to upgrade the Northeast Corridor for itself and NJ Transit—should be revisited immediately. The project has been desperately needed since the two existing Hudson tubes were severely damaged during Superstorm Sandy. That damage turned a slow-moving problem—the need for increased cross-Hudson capacity for passenger and freight trains—into a crisis that imperils the economic stability of the entire metropolitan area.
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