During a House Transportation Committee hearing earlier this month, Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) questioned witnesses about the Gateway Program and the impact of funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Recognized. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ranking Member. Thank you to our witnesses, Mr. Gardner,
00:04Mr. Kocha. It's always great to see you and to be able to partner with you on these incredibly
00:07important projects. The Gateway Program is one of the largest and most urgent infrastructure
00:12projects in the country and will improve reliability and resiliency for some of the
00:15most heavily trafficked miles of railroad in the country. And our district is home to the bulk of
00:21this project in New Jersey. Just this week, the Federal Transit Administration announced a full
00:25funding grant agreement for the Hudson Tunnel Project, which will build a new two-track Hudson
00:30River rail tunnel to connect New Jersey to Manhattan. This agreement is a historic milestone
00:35for this project and is the next step towards finalizing the largest ever mass transit grant
00:41in U.S. history. This is incredible news for our district. It will not only make significant
00:46strides in improving rail service, but will bring tens of thousands of jobs to our region.
00:51It is a privilege to sit on this committee and work with my colleagues on the committee and in
00:54our district to see this project to completion. Mr. Gardner, can you expand upon how the IAJA has
01:00resulted in more reliable service for those who use intercity passenger rail on a regular basis?
01:08Well, thank you, Congressman. And we're overjoyed at the investments that are coming here to
01:14propel the Gateway Program forward. And as you say, it is an incredible program. It's really
01:21to take the biggest bottleneck on the North American system, really, the two-track main
01:27line between Newark and New York, which is the busiest main line in North America, and create a
01:32four-track crossing that's reliable and that can serve for decades and hopefully centuries ahead,
01:40really. So we're really excited about that work. In addition to that project, there are a number
01:45of others in the region. There's the Portal North Bridge Program, which is already underway, funded
01:49before IAJA. We've got the Sawtooth Program, Dock Bridge, and a whole series of improvements that
01:58are being propelled because of the bipartisan infrastructure law investments. So it's really
02:05been decades in the making, these deferred investments, many we inherited when we took
02:10over the corridor in 1976. And this is the first time we've had the dollars available to make these
02:16improvements. And in partnership with the states, because these are not just Amtrak and federal
02:20investments, the states have, as our colleague here has said from North Carolina, we look for
02:26skin in the game participants here who can invest as well. So in addition to those huge projects,
02:32we're spending a lot of money trying to rebuild the railroad today so we get more reliability.
02:37The same issue for the tunnels exists at the track level. Switches, signals, overhead catenary,
02:42these systems are, in some cases, from the 1930s. So we've got to rebuild them and we're out there
02:48doing that and trying to balance that with service because it's hard to rebuild the railroad while
02:52you're running trance. So we've got to find that right mix and be able to get more and more
02:56investment out in the railroad and have that show up as better, more reliable service for passengers.
03:01Absolutely. And just want to quickly, because I want to be respectful of the other members,
03:04just give you an opportunity to follow up on this because we know about the incidents the
03:07last couple of weeks on the Northeast Corridor, etc. You allude to this in your prior answer,
03:11but just want you to be able to speak directly to the commuters, the residents of the district,
03:15and how does the IAJ funding towards the Northeast Corridor, how will it minimize and
03:22eventually eliminate incidents like what we've seen the last couple of weeks on the Northeast
03:27Corridor? Yeah, well, so thank you. The events of the last couple weeks were a combination of
03:31some infrastructure failures and some equipment issues on the New Jersey Transit side. Again,
03:35we share this railroad today and 24 trains an hour. It's the busiest railroad service in the U.S.
03:41here in this section. So on the infrastructure side, the big issues we had were some of our
03:47overhead wires. Again, this system that supports the traction power for our trains is from the
03:531930s. We have fatigued, ancient, really, designs and old equipment here. And it's made more
04:01difficult because there's very little windows to be able to go and do the work. So what the IAJ
04:06is allowing us in partnership with New Jersey Transit to do is go out and programmatically
04:12address those known critical areas of failure so that we can remove them.
04:16Meanwhile, these big projects are going to have huge improvements as well because they're going
04:19to put entirely new systems of power and signals in their locations and things like Portal Bridge
04:25today, which sometimes opens and gets stuck. Those kind of delays, which can throw a commute
04:34period into total chaos, they will be gone or radically reduced. Now, it's going to take some
04:40time, but we apologize to those who have been impacted by this. Of course, it's the last thing
04:45we want to do is have unreliable service. We're working hard, but we're digging out of a deep
04:50hole and it's going to take a lot of money and time. Thankfully, Congress's support here has
04:54given us that path. Absolutely, and I appreciate all the work. I know there's a lot more work to do.
04:58I yield back. Thank you both so much.