AUGUST 12, 2015, 11:51 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2015, 11:56 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG AND HERB JACKSON
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
It’s the tunnel that everyone agrees is necessary and no one wants to pay for.
This week, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York became the latest person to step into the fray, saying a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River should be built by a non-profit development corporation established specifically to tap every available pot of federal, state and regional money.
“We’ll only get Gateway done by adding up several pieces of financing, with an eye toward getting the maximum amount possible from the federal government,” Schumer said Tuesday at a news conference, referring to the name Amtrak has given a nascent plan for a new two-track tunnel.
But pursuing that financing requires promises from Governor Christie, a Republican presidential candidate who canceled a previous tunnel project, and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, who does not even want to meet to discuss it.
And until they are on the same page, any chance of persuading a Republican-led Congress focused on spending cuts to get behind a project as big as Gateway is a heavy lift indeed.
Still, Christie, Cuomo, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and nearly every transportation expert from Boston to Washington, D.C., agree with Schumer that work should begin immediately to build a new train tunnel, which would supplement the existing, century-old one that is beginning to fail.
Sounds about right, maybe the lord will provide.
It would be great for Bergen County to have the tunnel – but at what cost? Union labor is drooling for this, jack pot. It will make the corruption in Putin’s Sochi Olympics look like peanuts. Whatever the proposed budget is, multiply it 3X or more for all of the change orders, cost overruns, outright theft, and other forms of graft and corruption. Paul “Sanzari” Sarlo, Vince “Pay to Play” Prieto, and Steve”Iron Man” Sweeney will be lining up their union boys to profit big time from their “taste” of this taxpayer funded boondoggle.