still waiting...

Cuomo and Christie Ask Obama to Go Splitsies on New Rail Tunnels

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

After years of canceled projects and saying things like “It’s not my tunnel,” governors Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo have come up with a plan to build new rail tunnels under the Hudson River — something that needs to happen soon if we don’t want “transportation Armageddon” to happen, according to Senator Chuck Schumer. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit were plagued with many groan-inducing delays this summer because of the type of problems you’d expect to happen in tunnels that are about a century old. The plan mostly entails begging the federal government to pay for half of the project’s estimated $14 billion to $20 billion price tag. “We assure you that, if we have the funding, we will get it done,” the governors promised in a letter to President Obama yesterday. “Our shovels are ready.” 

Schumer responded to the plan — which includes a version of his idea to create a separate entity in charge of the project and its funding — on Tuesday using an egregious, if topical, metaphor: “There is light at the beginning of the tunnel.”

Cuomo and Christie Need Help on Rail Tunnels