Obama Administration To Trans-Hudson Tunnel Stakeholders: Get it Together

The existing tunnels carry hundreds of trains between the two states each day — but they were badly damaged during Sandy and are on the verge of collapse. Amtrak has said the only way to make repairs would be to take the tunnels out of service, but doesn't want to do that until new tunnels are built.

Those tunnels, known as the Gateway project, are in the planning stage, but the U.S. Department of Transportation wants both states and the Port Authority to help fund them.

Speaking at a conference designed to call attention to the issue, U.S. DOT undersecretary Peter Rogoff acknowledged that in order to build Gateway, some difficult political choices will need to be made — quickly.

"We really don't have time to appoint commissions to study it," he said. "We don't have time for funding partners to kind of engage in the usual shadowboxing of 'Well, what are you going to put in? Well, what am I going to put in? And what was that percentage and how does that compare that some other partner contributed to another project?'"

Rogoff said the Obama Administration has called Gateway the most important rail project in the country. But "in 20 months we'll be leaving," he said. "We need action by the governors, the legislators and by our own Congress."

He referenced a previous attempt to build a trans-Hudson tunnel — the ARC tunnel, which New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie cancelled in 2010 — as a "painful" experience. "We lost a decade designing a project that would never be built," he said. 

But Rogoff said it was time to move on. "We don't have another decade to spend thinking and talking about it."