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Supporters of New Hudson River Rail Tunnel Explore Temporary Fix for the Old One

Gateway Supporters Explore Temporary Fix to Hudson Rail Tunnels

(Bloomberg) -- Backers of a new Hudson River rail tunnel have an idea for how to wait out the Trump administration’s opposition to funding it: a cable-racking system like one Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed for a subway tunnel under the East River.

Gateway Program Development Corp. officials said they would ask engineers to determine in 30 days whether the 108-year-old Hudson River tube could get a similar, temporary fix by simply attaching electric cables to tunnel walls.

Announced in January, Cuomo’s suggestion for the Canarsie subway tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn is expected to save the L-train from a 15-month service suspension because repair work could continue while the tunnel remains open. A shutdown, which had been scheduled to start this month, would have required reconstruction of benchwalls holding power cables that are corroding because of the salt water that flooded the facility during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Anthony Coscia, chairman of Amtrak, the federal rail company that owns the Hudson River tunnels, tempered expectations about the option.

“It’s premature because we’re talking about -- these are 12,000-volt systems in a very unique type of alignment, with cables coming in from various transfer systems on both sides of the river,” Coscia said. “They’re embedded in the benchwalls in a way that’s different” from the subway tunnel, he said.

The plan, mentioned during a Gateway board meeting in Manhattan on Tuesday, might buy the project some time while it pleads with the federal government to honor a promise from former President Barack Obama’s administration to share half the financing for the $13 billion overhaul.

The new tunnel is needed so repairs could be made to the existing one, with the twin goals of preventing a catastrophic failure of the old tunnel while expanding regional rail capacity for 200,000 commuters a day and travelers between Washington, D.C., and Boston.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump’s administration rejected Gateway’s latest application for funding, rating the plan a “Medium-Low” priority for not including enough local financing. Gateway officials have disputed the finding, saying the states of New York and New Jersey have pledged to pay for it through money borrowed by local agencies and from the federal government.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net, William Selway

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