Cuomo described the conversation as a wide-ranging one, covering everything from his rebuild of LaGuardia Airport to the new Tappan Zee bridge. But that conversation does not appear to have covered the tunnel nitty-gritty. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Cuomo emerges from Trump Gateway meeting touting progress, with little to point to

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo emerged from his meeting on Wednesday with President Donald Trump hailing what he described as the president’s newfound interest in helping the region build a new tunnel to Penn Station, even as he was unable to offer any substantive evidence that the president is in fact interested.

“I think it’s fair to say that the meeting was a positive meeting,” Cuomo said during a Wednesday afternoon press conference in his Midtown Manhattan offices. “I think it’s fair to say that the president was receptive to what we were talking about, and the president said that he wanted to take the next steps to find a way forward.”


Cuomo’s proposed next steps, which the president did not necessarily agree to, including: restructuring the entity tasked with building the so-called Gateway tunnel to include a federal representative, even though the federal government withdrew from that very entity at the start of the Trump administration; and bidding out the project to try to get a lower price, even though the project’s developers say they can’t bid it out until the Trump administration signs off on its environmental review — a sign-off they were hoping for since March.

A spokesperson for the Gateway Program Development Corporation had no immediate comment. Nor did a spokesperson for Amtrak. Amtrak and the states of New York and New Jersey all have representatives on the corporation’s board.

In a statement, the White House made no mention of Gateway and described the meeting in generic terms.

“The group discussed a number of important topics, focusing on infrastructure,” the statement reads. “The President cares deeply for his home state of New York and always appreciates the opportunity to engage with the Governor on issues important to the state and region.”

Cuomo described the conversation — held, according to a source, over a lunch of shrimp, beef and chocolate cake — as a wide-ranging one, covering everything from his rebuild of LaGuardia Airport to the new Tappan Zee bridge. But that conversation does not appear to have covered the tunnel nitty-gritty.

The president did not agree to split the cost of the project. The officials, including U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, did not discuss whether the states could use federal loans as part of the local share, an arcane but contentious issue that’s inflamed state-federal tensions in the past. They did, however, talk about their shared skepticism of the estimate that the tunnel to New York’s Penn Station — and the repair of the old one — would cost some $13 billion.

“The president’s concern and my concern is, you want me to sign on to the bottom line ... what is the actual cost?” Cuomo said.

Cuomo’s apparent desire to show progress on the rail tunnel makes a certain amount of political sense.

The existing tunnel between New Jersey and Penn Station — the nation’s busiest rail hub — is 108 years old and was deteriorating even before Hurricane Sandy flooded it with brackish water. Amtrak, which owns the tunnel, has said it may have to close some or all of the tunnel within the next decade. Closing even one of the tunnel’s two tracks would, experts say, risk sending the region into an economic recession.

Ever since the arrival of the Trump administration, the project has come to a standstill, reportedly a victim of a dispute between the president and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has championed the tunnel but refused to fund the president’s border wall.

“The Gateway Tunnel project is fundamental to the New York regional, northeast and national economy, and the failure to modernize and rebuild it would lead to Armageddon for commuters and derail the economy," Schumer said in a statement. "The president should not play political games with Gateway, but should instead join the governors of New York and New Jersey, and the bipartisan congressional delegations of those states, in getting it built as quickly as possible.”

Last month, Cuomo took the press on a dead-of-night tour of the existing tunnel, and sent a video of the excursion to the president. The president responded, according to Cuomo’s office, with a phone call and then this meeting.

Trump might also have been responding to some friendly pressure. Two real estate developers who are friends with the president, Steven Roth and Richard LeFrak, have also been lobbying the president to revive the project, according to a knowledgeable source.

Both developers declined comment for this story. Spokespeople for the White House didn’t respond to a request for further comment.

And at the moment, the project remains at a standstill.

“President Trump came in two years ago and said full stop,” Cuomo said. “So, we are nowhere right now. There is no clock ticking. Because there is no clock. So we are nowhere.”