SCHUMER ANNOUNCES MAJOR ADVANCEMENT FOR GATEWAY TUNNEL: PROJECT HAS JUST LOCKED IN A LONG-AWAITED FED RATING THAT OPENS THE DOOR TO BILLIONS IN GRANT FUNDS; SENATOR ALREADY SECURED MUCH OF THESE FUNDS WHILE REGULATORY PROCESS PLAYED OUT & VIA ‘BIF’

During The Trump Admin, When White House Weaponized Fed DOT To Politically Stall Gateway, Schumer Banked Billions In Fed Funds For Project Via Spending Bills; To Boot, The Schumer-Championed Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIF) Appropriated $23B For FTA’s Capital Grant Program That Gateway Will Use To Advance  

One Year Since President Biden Was Inaugurated, Largest Infrastructure Project In Country Is Now On The Fast Track

Schumer: Today Marks A Huge Victory For NY/NJ/Metro Transit—And Our Entire Economy

A year after President Joe Biden’s administration was inaugurated, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer announced, today, a major advancement for the Gateway Tunnel Project. The project has just locked a long-awaited and positive federal rating of MEDIUM-HIGH from FTA’s Capital Investment Grant (CIG) Program. Schumer explained that CIG will be the primary federal funding source for the project and said securing a positive rating is a key step on the way to the project being awarded its fed funds.

“I just got off the flip phone with Secretary Buttigieg and I can report that this new critical, new rating means that the Gateway Tunnel project will continue its full-speed-ahead trajectory. The Gateway Tunnel project has just secured a positive rating at the FTA, and it is just huge, because it means the billions we secured for this project are that much closer to being put to work,” said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. “For four years, under the last administration, the project languished for spurious and, unfortunately, political reasons. It’s fitting that exactly one year since the new administration was inaugurated, this project is now on the fast-track to locking down federal funds and being built. This is good news for New York, our transit riders and our entire northeast economy.”

The Gateway Tunnel Project involves repairing the two existing Northeast Corridor (NEC) passenger rail tunnels under the Hudson, while building two new tunnels alongside them to ultimately increase trans-Hudson transit capacity. The project is the largest infrastructure project in the country and is key to the future development of the region. 

A positive rating allows FTA to eventually move the project into the Engineering and ultimately the Full Funding Grant Agreement phases of the CIG program.  Today’s announcement from FTA signals that FTA considers the project to have sufficient local support and a clear, realistic plan from the states and Amtrak, on how they plan to execute this project.

• The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized $15 billion for FTA’s CIG program, which is the primary federal funding source for Gateway.
• Additionally, the law appropriated $8 billion for the FTA’s CIG program.
• This is a total of $23 billion for CIG that Schumer secured in the act.

The project’s environmental impact statement (EIS) was approved last summer by the Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration, which Schumer and Secretary Buttigieg touted in a press conference at Penn Station.

“The impacts of this corridor are so great that if there were a loss of service, if one of these tunnels were to go out of service, you would be feeling the economic impact all the way back in Indiana, where I come from. That’s how important this is,” Buttigieg said at the time.

As touted by AMNY, the tunnels are part of a larger initiative to improve Northeast Corridor, the busiest passenger rail line in the country, and the 10-mile segment of the project carries more than 200,000 daily Amtrak and NJ Transit passengers.