Feds Deny Any Gateway Agreement.
As of this moment, I have not yet seen confirmation in—dare I use the term?—in the mainstream media, but the New York edition of Crain’s, the business publication, has reported that the Trump Administration is withdrawing the federal government’s support of the Gateway Project. It appears to be their position that there never was an agreement specifying that half of the funding for the project would come from the feds.
The story certainly appears valid. Crain’s is a legitimate, respected business publication and they quote by name the deputy administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.
This news, if true, would kill—at least for the present—what is arguably the single most important infrastructure project in the country: a new tunnel under the Hudson River to connect New York City with New Jersey; repairs to the original dual tunnels (now well over 100 years old and badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012); and the rebuilding of the infamously balky Portal Bridge in New Jersey.
Many hundreds of trains a day pass through and over this infrastructure, which links Manhattan with New Jersey and the entire lower portion of the Northeast Corridor to Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of people on commuter trains pass through those tunnels on the way to work in New York City from New Jersey every day. And so do numerous Amtrak trains from New York to the entire eastern seaboard and to all of the southern states.
I’m not going to bother looking it up—frankly, I’m just too damn pissed— but I recall one estimate that the closing of those tunnels for whatever reason would cost the regional economy a billion dollars a day.
Remember all that campaign Trump-eting about a trillion dollar plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure? How it was all part of the Grand Plan to “make American great again”?
Just smoke and mirrors, folks. Just more bullshit from the President of the United States.
I ditto those who dislike your hatred and foul language for President Trump – aka “Trump derangement syndrome”. I don’t subscribe to this blog to hear your rage. All of us know Government isn’t neat and clean and involves lots of “sausage making” deals, so quit crying the sky is falling all the time. If BO was so great when he ran up 12 trillon in debt, how come he didn’t fix it? He only had 8 years. And where we’re YOU with all your connections. Could the BO Administration say they didn’t know? Just remember bullies need someone to hate, while a journalist just needs to report the story and facts. Being a bully of Trump doesn’t serve you well, your blog, or passenger service. Best remove the log from your own eye before pointing out the speck in others.
Uh … I really have no idea where to begin. Let me just start and stop with your reference to Obama running up 12 trillion (with a T) in debt. May I most respectfully suggest you might want to check your source for that.
It does get a little tiring to hear you continually bashing any – and I repeat, any – conservative Republican. I cannot think of any Republican of whom you’ve ever spoken kindly of.
I read your column only because of my interest in long distance passenger rail but I hate to wade through your liberal political rantings.
And please stop with the profanity; it doesn’t make you sound smart or sophisticated, just trashy and somewhat inarticulate.
Well, Charles, I guess time will tell which of us has the right view of things. In the meantime, I shall do my best to take your sensitivities into consideration. I am afraid, however, when it comes to Donald Trump, I find both his policies and his personal standards so abhorrent that more decorous language is simply inadequate. Referring to his promise of a trillion dollar program to deal with our collapsing infrastructure as bull-poop just doesn’t cut it.
Indeed, CRAIN’S achieved a scoop. However, as the vivid comment section denoted, the powerful Northeastern politicians, federal and regional, have for decades assumed a position of entitlement, expecting federal cavalry to always ride to their rescue and bail them out; allowing them to perpetually ignore their infrastructure issues in their own backyard.
This issue started back in 1976, when the Northeastern political class ensured that with the creation of Conrail, the Northeast Corridor (NEC) would become Amtrak’s burden to own and operate. However, those politicos, and the ones that followed, shrugged off the obvious need (i.e., responsibility) to fund the re-building of the long deferred maintenance and repair of the NEC infrastructure. Instead, these politicos were content to rely on an NEC built by the New Haven in 1908 (Boston-New York), and the Pennsylvania in 1935 (New York-Washington).
As Amtrak lacked any dedicated funding for the NEC infrastructure, given how the majority of its schedules operated over Class 1 freight lines, the Northeast’s politicos placed powerful developers and financiers from New Jersey on Amtrak’s Board of Directors. This enabled the Board to encourage management longevity by creating the violation of GAAP to avoid true cost accounting; and ignore the transpo industry standard of measuring performance by revenue per passenger mile, which was obviously in the favor of the Long Distance routes. Not only were funds for the national network persistently re-directed to bail-out the NEC, but Amtrak never collected the operational and depreciation costs from the many commuter lines using the NEC-not even after PRIIA 2008 required it. Actual commuter line payments did not start until December, 2015, when mandated by Congress.
Amazing how the political bloc of the Northeast actually bought into Amtrak’s claim of the NEC as “profitable,” but drained to support the national system. Although Congress enabled the NEC to be separated from the national system in 2015, what will Amtrak do now that it can no longer heist funds for the NEC from the “money-losing” long distance routes? All Amtrak has is the state-supported corridors required to cover 100% of costs according to Amtrak’s own cost methodology. And people still wonder why their has not been a proforma for Congress to authorize the acquisition and rehab of Superliners to meet increased seasonal demand; to increase frequencies and expand new routes?
This “shell game” of Amtrak diverting funding and revenues to the NEC with a wink from its Board serving their Northeast patrons, goes hand-in-hand with that region’s governors and congressional members oblivious to their responsibility for the infrastructure that is vastly utilized by their commuter lines; not intercity services. Trump merely moved to cut the governors umbilical cord to the federal treasury; force them to realize that they can no longer rely on their promises to pay but 50% with Monopoly money; as well as to require the senators and members of Congress to appreciate those tunnels and bridges will only be financed with a quid pro quo in the public interest for the rest of the nation.
A harsh wake-up call for a region and its dominant, partisan political party to appreciate that the open spigot from the treasury is closed. Indeed, we might now actually achieve out of all this drama a sense of bi-partisan efforts for the good of the country.
You raise some interesting arguments, I think. But as a non-American, I am not qualified to discuss the partisan politics of it, however from an economical point of view, it would seem quite reasonable to give a bonus to one of the densest regions of the country, and one of its main economic powerhouses. A failing Northeast would seriously chip into the nation’s treasury, and functioning public transport is needed to avoid that.
Of course, politically, a national service should be available to all citizens, not just those living in one area. To find that equilibrium is the task of the nation’s politicians. And a difficult one in all countries, I’d add.
It really saddens me when you do this Jim. Stop hating Trump please and stop speculating. From the same article: “Trump has repeatedly hyped an infrastructure plan that he has promised to release in the New Year. Such a plan would require a large number of votes from Schumer’s conference in order to pass the Senate. Folding Gateway into a Trump infrastructure bill would pressure Schumer to deliver those votes. Elaine Chao, Trump’s transportation secretary, is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, which could increase the White House’s leverage”……so Trump is using this as leverage to get other things done AS WELL. Politics as usual.
We shall have to agree to disagree with respect to Trump. Let’s check back a year from today and see what if any progress has been made as far as the trillion-dollar infrastructure program is concerned.
Anything Trump has received so far he deserves and then some, and anyone who voted for him should take a long, hard look in the mirror.