Hole sad story
Gov to send Don vid of rail tunnel ills in $ plea
Gov. Cuomo is sending a video of a leaky and crumbling train tunnel to President Trump.
The video is Cuomo’s latest effort to get federal money to cover the construction of a new crossing for Amtrak and NJ Transit trains under the Hudson River.
“I’m gonna be sending it to President Trump, just so the President has a visual understanding of the serious deterioration of the tunnels,” Cuomo said in North Bergen, N.J., before heading into the Manhattan-bound North River Tunnel on a flatbed train car for a tour, with journalists along for the ride, late Wednesday.
Cuomo and the bistate Port Authority want to split evenly with the feds the $11.1 billion bill to build a new tunnel in eight years and $1.6 billion to rehab the two dilapidated old ones in four years.
The 50/50 deal to fund the Gateway Program, which aims to double the number of passenger trains running under the Hudson River, was cut during the Obama administration. But the Trump administration was not bound to it, and U.S. Department of Transportation officials have called for New York to put in more local money instead of relying on federal loans.
Despite the national importance of the project cited by its supporters, Transportation Department officials believe it’s a local project for mostly local riders that would suck up money for federal funding elsewhere. In the meantime, an environmental review is progressing, according to a department spokesman.
“This is not fine negotiating points at this level. This is a basic yay or nay,” Cuomo said. “I wish we were down to fine points of a contract or fine points of a financing scenario. We’re nowhere right now.”
When asked if naming the tunnel for Trump would help, Cuomo responded, “Whatever name they want, we would do.”
The late-night tour of the century-old tunnel revealed corroded equipment and cracked concrete damaged from salt water seeping in from above. Hurricane Sandy floodwater that deteriorated 12,000-volt cables in the ducts of the tunnel walls.
To show how thoroughly equipment has rotted, Cuomo walked over an open hole on the bench wall to kick a rusty piece of metal exposed in concrete.
“We’re not talking about a catastrophic failure,” Cuomo said. “But you have a level of damage that is possible that can interrupt service for days.”
“If you lose service of one of these tunnels for one, two or three days, you’re talking about a devastating impact on transportation in the whole Northeast corridor,” he added.
Rick Cotton, the Port Authority executive director, said falling concrete sidelined train service last month when a chunk hit the overhead catenary wires and they snagged on a passing train.
“There’s no question it’s going to get worse,” Cotton said. “Every piece of deterioration that you see is going to accelerate.”