Gov. Andrew Cuomo says President Donald Trump is all aboard his new plan to construct new commuter tunnels under the Hudson River—and that they agreed to boot Amtrak and several ancillary projects from Gateway.

The governor held the press conference at his Manhattan office on Wednesday hours after meeting with his fellow Queens native at the White House to discuss the undertaking. What appears to have emerged from the summit is a complete reimagining of what has for several years been called the Gateway Project, a plan billed at $30 billion that would replace and refurbish several pieces of Amtrak infrastructure along the Northeast Corridor between New York and New Jersey.

“It was all positive, it was all good. The president got it, he had a surprising amount of knowledge about infrastructure projects here in New York,” the governor said of the Republican president, a former family friend, legal client and political donor. "The president literally used that word. He said 'I am receptive, I am looking for a way to move forward.'"

The way forward, according to Cuomo: "breaking the tunnel away from Gateway," removing Amtrak's representative from overseeing the Gateway Project Development Corporation, replacing them with an as-yet unnamed federal representative and immediately putting the project out to bid, without completing the usual environmental impact study or even having the federal dollars in place. He noted that Amtrak has put the cost of boring a new train conduit between New York and New Jersey at $13 billion.

"I'm not signing the check on an Amtrak estimate. And the president's not signing a check based on an Amtrak estimate. So we need real bids," Cuomo said.

Crain's reached out to Amtrak for comment. The governor repeatedly disparaged the federally owned public corporation, which he feuded with during the summer of 2017 over repairs at Pennsylvania Station.

Since its inception in 2011, designs for the Gateway Project—which superseded a previous proposal called Access to the Region's Core—have also included the construction of a new Portal Bridge and the replacement of approaching tracks in New Jersey. Cuomo downplayed the urgency of these endeavors compared to the century-old tubes that currently carry Amtrak and NJ Transit riders, which sustained severe damage during 2012's Hurricane Sandy.

"I'm focused on the tunnels, number one from a safety point of view, number two, if we lose one of those tunnels, lose use of the tunnel, it will have a devastating impact," he said, noting that the failure of the current link would cut off New York and Boston from points south, and impact a fifth of the nation's gross domestic product. "You're talking about economic catastrophic circumstances if these tunnels fail."

Trump has thus far balked at providing funding for the Gateway Project, for which Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer has been the loudest and most consistent advocate. His Department of Transportation rejected a loan application from New York and New Jersey last year, and he junked an Obama-era deal that would have had the federal government provide half the financing for the project. He also reportedly fought to prevent money from the most recent federal spending omnibus from reaching the endeavor.

The governor said that the president was primarily concerned about the potential for waste and cost overruns on such a massive project, and that the two agreed that private contractors must handle the building process. Typically, federally subsidized projects submit an environmental impact study, secure financing and then go to bid.

Cuomo indicated the reconstituted Gateway Project Development Corporation could skip these steps to get a better sense of the project's actual costs before negotiating a funding arrangement with the Trump administration. The Democrat further asserted that the tunnel work could then proceed without any new legislation, but only "an administrative act" by the president's team.