NYC Rail Tunnel's 11-Month Review Spurs Congress to Demand Haste

(Bloomberg) -- A bipartisan group of 22 House members from New York and New Jersey urged the Transportation Department to complete an environmental review for a proposed new tunnel that would be part of the Gateway Project connecting their two states.

In a letter Monday to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the lawmakers said the proposed Hudson Tunnel Project has been under review for 11 months. The average length of time for completion of an environmental impact statement is five months, according to a statement from New Jersey Democrat Tom Malinowski.

"This administration campaigned on revitalizing American infrastructure, but there is no sign they are taking that promise seriously," Malinowski said in the statement accompanying the letter. "I hope Secretary Chao will consider our letter carefully and remove this unnecessary hurdle to getting the Gateway Project moving.”

In a statement, a Transportation Department spokesperson said the Hudson Tunnels project remains ineligible for federal funding because local authorities haven’t committed sufficient funds to the project. The spokesperson also said the project’s application “has not provided documentation demonstrating that even 30 percent of the design has been completed.”

A December 2018 review by the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality found it took an average of one year and five months to finalize an environmental impact statement after publishing a draft for public comment. The Hudson Tunnel project’s draft environmental impact statement was published in mid-2017.

Officials from New York and New Jersey and the Trump administration have been clashing over funding for the $30 billion Gateway Project, a regional rail overhaul including the proposed new tunnel under the Hudson River into Manhattan that’s critical for the Northeast corridor. President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal doesn’t include any money for the project.

The Gateway project has experienced "unprecedented delays" in the Transportation Department’s grant review process, slowing efforts to repair the existing North River Tunnel that’s used by more than 200,000 passengers between New Jersey and New York every day, the House members wrote.

"If the tunnel were to collapse or become structurally unsound, it would endanger public safety and devastate the U.S. economy, as the New York metropolitan area is responsible for 20 percent of our nation’s gross domestic product," the letter to Chao said. "The Gateway Project is vital, and there is no justification for placing artificial and unnecessary roadblocks in its path."

The 22 House members signing the letter include Democrats Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and New York’s Jerrold Nadler, Eliot Engel and Nydia Velazquez, and Republicans Lee Zeldin and Peter King of New York.

While the states have said they are willing to pay half the cost of the tunnel project, the Federal Transit Administration has rated it “medium-low,” meaning it’s not eligible for federal funding.

“Those are projects that those communities themselves have thus far chosen not to fund,” Deputy Secretary Jeffrey Rosen said in a March 11 call with reporters. “While we occasionally hear reports that officials from those states say they will do so, there is not yet any discernible path forward.”

--With assistance from Mark Niquette and Ryan Beene.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Flatley in Washington at dflatley1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo

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