NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will be in New York City on Monday to tour a set of Hudson River train tunnels damaged by Superstorm Sandy.
Buttigieg will be joined by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
He'll get a close-up view of the crumbling 110-year-old tunnels that carry New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains from New Jersey to Manhattan.
The visit comes days after Congress and the White House struck a tentative deal on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that could help pay to fix the tunnels after the Biden administration assured lawmakers that the president would not hold out on signing it for a larger Democrat-backed plan.
Amtrak estimates the cost of building new tunnels and repairing the old ones to be $11.6 billion. It's part of the larger Gateway Project that's aimed at expanding rail capacity in the New York region.
The governors of New York and New Jersey had previously committed to pay for half of the cost with the feds picking up the rest of the tab.
But Gov. Andrew Cuomo last month said state money won't be used unless the project uses construction techniques utilized to repair Sandy-damaged subway tunnels under the East River. The fix of the tunnel used for the L train prevented the complete shutdown of the tube for more than a year, as had been planned.
Following a morning train ride from New Jersey to Penn Station, Buttigieg and Schumer will hold a news conference to announce a "Gateway turnaround" and renewed federal partnership, with the senator expected to pledge billions of dollars and an expedited timetable to get the tunnel project "moving along."
The planned $11 billion rail tunnel received federal approvals last month needed to secure full funding.