President Biden Appears in NYC to Launch Hudson River Tunnel Project

By Yehudit Garmais

For the US “to have the best economy in the world, you need to have the best infrastructure in the world," said President Job Biden on Monday, the day before he traveled to New York to join Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and many other elected officials to tour the federally funded project that will rehabilitate the Hudson Tunnel.

The Hudson River Tunnel Project will not only improve travel between New York and New Jersey for the 200,000 passengers who use the tunnel every weekday, but will also create 72,000 jobs.

“We're going to be putting so many men and women to work, and we're going to train them and help lift them up and out of their circumstances,” said the governor, who explained that the Hudson River Tunnel Project will bolster both the economies of the region and the nation.

The Northeast Corridor is the most used rail line in the country,” explained Gov. Hochul as she thanked the president for the infusion of federal funds into the NY state. “[The rail line] not just an economic driver for New York and New Jersey, but the rest of the country is also relying on this.

“Our members of Congress need to get back and forth to their jobs in Washington,” said Gov. Hochul who joked that she noticed US Congressman Dan Goldman “in the front row there, worried about getting back [to Washington, DC.]

In November 2021, after President Biden signed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure act to improve the nation’s outdated roads, bridges, and transit systems, New York state received $16 billion to rehabilitate the old North River Tunnel, which first opened in 1910.

Now the Hudson River Tunnel Project aims to build a new tunnel beneath the Palisades, Hudson River, and the waterfront area in Manhattan, according to a White House official.

Yesterday, when Gov. Hochul announced with excitement that the Hudson River Project was starting to create the concrete casings that go underneath railroads, she said the first project’s first steps represented a “bold, audacious first step that is not for the faint of heart” and characteristic of the spirit of New York.

The improvement of New York’s train systems also will “entice people to use [public transit] to promote a cleaner, better environment for our children and our grandkids.”

“This [project] says we're moving forward,” said Gov. Hochul with excitement. “We're reaching out in the future and seizing it with gusto.”

photo credit: Flickr