Gateway project to build new Hudson River tunnels wins key federal approval
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Federal Railroad Administration officials approved a Record of Decision Friday for the Environmental Impact Study for the tunnel project between New Jersey and New York, that’s part of the larger Gateway Project. That will allow rehabilitation of the existing 110-year-old tunnels currently used by 450-plus Amtrak and NJ Transit trains a day.
The decision allows significant work to begin on a tunnel project that has been sought since October 2014 when an Amtrak engineering study that found the original 1910-era tunnels built by the Pennsylvania Railroad were on borrowed time. Flooding from Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 and the wear and tear of a century of use meant new tunnels needed to be built so the old tunnels could be taken out of service, gutted and renovated.
Doubling passenger rail capacity under the Hudson is essential, as we’ve said for years and there’s a faster, cheaper and better to get there than Amtrak’s $30 billion Gateway boondoggle. But we must now confess that our criticism was wrong.
Study: Return of passenger rail service could have economic impact of nearly half a billion for Mississippi gulflive.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gulflive.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
An open letter from Virginia Rail Policy Institute President Meredith Richards and Executive Director Michael Testerman to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on the Institute’s National Freight Strategic Plan Critique.
Dear Secretary Buttigieg:
The Virginia Rail Policy Institute congratulates you on your appointment as United States Secretary of Transportation. We wish you much success in transforming our nation’s transportation system to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
In the waning days of Secretary Elaine Chao’s term, the United States Department of Transportation issued the
National Freight Strategic Plan. Many years in the making, this plan falls far short of delegating any new mobility responsibilities to the rail freight industry over the next quarter century beyond the status quo and maintaining rail freight’s meager market share.