The Gateway Development Commission board took the last step Wednesday to secure a $3.8 billion federal grant, the final funding piece for the $16 billion project to build a new rail tunnel that will carry Amtrak and NJ Transit trains under the Hudson River into Manhattan.
The project will construct a new two-track tunnel that is expected to be completed in 2035. Then the exiting century-old rail tunnel that was seriously damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012 will be rehabilitated. Equipment failures in the existing tunnel often wreak havoc for NJ Transit and Amtrak riders.
The board’s move authorizing the commission to enter into the grant agreement with the Federal Railroad Administration “will cap off the massive effort to get the Hudson Tunnel Project all of the funding it needs to be completed,” said Alicia Glen, Gateway’s New York commissioner, Balpreet Grewal-Virk, New Jersey’s commissioner, and Tony Coscia, Amtrak’s commissioner, in a joint statement…