As President Trump continued to insist this week that he had killed funding for a new tunnel under the Hudson River, Andy Byford, his pick to lead the redevelopment of Penn Station — which would connect to that tunnel — said he was “not unduly fazed” by the funding threat, adding, “I think this will all play out as part of the [government] shutdown.”
Byford — officially a special adviser to the Amtrak board overseeing the federally led redesign of the Midtown transit hub — made the comment to reporters Wednesday after addressing the New York Building Congress, a construction industry group.
It comes three weeks after the Trump administration announced, in the early hours of the ongoing government shutdown, that funding for the Hudson River Tunnel — the primary component of the Gateway Project, meant to double the number of rail lines between New Jersey and Penn Station — was being paused pending a procedural review.
In recent days, however, Trump has said in a number of media interviews that he has “terminated” the project — making sure to point out that Senate Minority Leader and Trump foil Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has advocated for the tunnel for more than a decade.
“Billions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get — it’s terminated,” the president told reporters last week when asked about the funding hold. “Tell him, ‘It’s terminated.’”
Over the weekend, Trump, on Fox News, called the project “dead.”
“We’re cutting a $20 billion project that Schumer fought for 15 years to get,” he said.
“I’m cutting the project,” he went on. “The project is going to be dead. It’s pretty much dead right now.”
At a Rose Garden appearance Tuesday, Trump again referenced the project, but equivocated.
The president said, “$20 billion, we’re cutting. They’re never going to get it back.”
“They may not get it back,” he immediately hedged. “Maybe we’ll talk to them about it.”
Despite declarations to the contrary, work on the $16 billion tunnel has continued over the past three weeks — though the feds have put a hold on any reimbursements for the project. A source familiar with the situation said the project can continue for a few more months before its coffers run dry.
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The tunnel is the first and most significant phase of the Gateway Project, which will double the number of rail lines across the New Jersey Meadowlands, allowing repairs to the existing North River Tunnel that carries Amtrak and NJ Transit trains into Penn Station from the west and ultimately doubling the number of trains that can cross under the Hudson at one time.
Though it’s a separate project from the one that Byford’s been given — a total overhaul of Penn Station and its operations — the two are necessarily intertwined.
“We’ve got to accommodate passenger growth,” Byford told gathered members of the construction industry Wednesday, “The Gateway Project will deliver a lot more trains coming in, so we must make sure that we’ve got the space to accommodate that.”
Byford repeatedly emphasized that he has Trump’s full support to rework Penn Station.
“We cannot wait any longer to unlock the potential of the station, and we [have] support directly from the White House to do so,” he said. “The time for talking is over.”
Byford acknowledged that, in taking on one of the city’s most intractable transit and real estate problems, “it is going to be difficult to rally all of these disparate views” of what the station — used by three different railroads — should become.
If he meets with resistance, Byford said to some laughs within the room, “My trump card is — the Trump card.”
The White House, Byford noted, will also sign off on the final proposal for the Penn Station design.
“Gateway’s really important, in that it will deliver not only more trains coming from the west to accommodate growth in New Jersey through the new tunnels, but it will also provide a critical addition to infrastructure,” Byford told reporters later when about the president’s statements.
“I’m not unduly fazed by what’s going on at the moment,” he continued. “I think there’s an element of politics. I think that this will all play out as part of, potentially, the shutdown in government.”
“What I do know is that we need to continue to make improvements in infrastructure, not just at Penn but across the whole tristate region,” Byford added. “So, certainly we’re making the case to continue having funding for Gateway and for Penn Station.”
Asked about the Trump administration’s broader efforts to defund New York City’s transit systems — including the Second Ave. subway, congestion pricing revenue, and even a Midtown Manhattan crosstown busway — the former NYC Transit head demurred.
“I’m very much focused on my project, and the good news is I’m not seeing any slowdown at all in the funding for the Penn transformation project,” Byford said. “In terms of the broader political perspective, my chairman and my president are dealing with that, and I’m confident we will make the case and be able to get the funding turned back on.”
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