Trump infrastructure plan bumps Gateway tunnel to the back of the line

Two years ago, a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River into New York's Penn Station was considered one of the most important infrastructure projects in the country.

Yet the $12.7 billion Gateway project did not even rate a mention in the much-ballyhooed blueprint for revamping American infrastructure that was unveiled Monday by President Donald Trump.

Trump's Fiscal Year 2019 budget, also released Monday, cuts funding for Amtrak's long-distance passenger trains and eliminates the very federal program through which the project was supposed to be funded.

It was hard to tell Monday that Trump wasn't talking about Gateway in a statement about the need for rebuilding roads, tunnels and bridges that he sent to members of Congress.

"Our nation's infrastructure is in an unacceptable state of disrepair, which damages our country's competitiveness and our citizens' quality of life," Trump said. "For too long, lawmakers have invested in infrastructure inefficiently, ignored critical needs, and allowed it to deteriorate."

But while President Barack Obama's administration put Gateway at the front of the line, Trump's has sent it to the back.

In 2016, then-Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the department was "taking a concrete step toward making a substantial federal investment" in the Gateway tunnel and a replacement for the Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River in Secaucus.

"We’re looking forward to continuing to work closely with our partners in New York and New Jersey to make a new rail tunnel a reality," Foxx said at the time, noting the tunnel's age and deterioration from exposure to seawater during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Under Trump's plan, however, Gateway will have to compete with other projects across the country for a limited amount of grant money intended to leverage state, local and private-sector investment.

"You could see how they might be able to make the argument about the national economic impact of Gateway, but you’d have to see what the competition is," said Robert Puentes, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transporation, a policy group in Washington.

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Trump proposes $200 billion in direct federal investment over 10 years to stimulate $1.5 trillion in infrastructure projects.

The $200 billion wouldn't be new money, either. Rather, the Trump plan envisions cutting existing programs to pay for it.

That includes $757 million in subsidies for much of Amtrak's network outside the Northeast, as well as $1.4 billion from a Federal Transit Administration program called New Starts. That program was supposed to pay for grants to get Gateway going.

Puentes said Gateway could qualify for a slice of a $20 billion pie designated for "transformative projects," managed by the Department of Commerce.

One budget document said that transformative projects would have to be "commercially viable projects that are capable of generating revenue, provide net public benefits, and would have a significant positive impact on the nation, a region, state, or metropolitan area."

To meet the standard of “generating revenue” it is conceivable a plan could be developed that charged commuters extra for using the new Hudson River tunnel. That's not unlike the rider surcharge former Gov. Chris Christie had proposed before he left office last month to pay for New Jersey's share.

"But clearly New Jersey Transit riders have seen fares go up for service that has generally been considered poor, so the timing doesn’t seem to be right for that," Puentes said.

Whether Trump’s plan advances at all is unknown, however.

It seems to set up tension between urban and rural states, Puentes said, by creating a $50 billion program, nearly all of which would be spent next year, for rural infrastructure grants, including broadband service.

That program does not include the requirement that projects generate revenue.

State elected officials were cool to Trump's plan.

"It forces the majority of costs onto cash-strapped state and local governments," said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-Monmouth County.

New Jersey's new governor was not impressed.

"This is probably a fraction of what our state needs or frankly the country needs," said Gov. Phil Murphy, who campaigned last year on a promise to rebuild NJ Transit.

Murphy said the region was paying "a huge price" for Christie's decision in 2010 to cancel the previous Hudson River tunnel, which had federal funding locked in. The Access to the Region's Core tunnel would be just about finished by now, Murphy said.

"The Gateway project, it’s not optional," he said. "This is pass/fail. I’m of the opinion we’re going to stay at it."

Statehouse reporter Dustin Racioppi contributed to this story.