President Joe Biden’s infrastructure czar, Mitch Landrieu said the US Northeast Corridor rail line would receive “a lot of attention” as far as spending, and called the $12.4 billion Gateway plan “a cathedral project.”

Landrieu also said that while there was money available from Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure package, it was up to state and local officials to set priorities and apply for assistance.

“If you sat back and you thought to yourself well, what are the 15 to 20 huge projects, lets call them cathedral projects in the country that should get done, you would think that Gateway would be one of them,” Landrieu, a former mayor of New Orleans, said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday.

“You can have some comfort that the Northeast Corridor is going to get a lot of attention,” he added.

Gateway is critical for the corridor, Amtrak’s busiest route, carrying more than 2,200 daily trains and stretching from Washington to Boston. The massive project includes construction of a new underwater tunnel between New York and New Jersey as well as replacement of the existing one that was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

A report published Wednesday by the Regional Plan Association underscored the transportation and economic challenges faced by the New York metropolitan area as it continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The report’s authors warned that “transit trips across the Hudson River will continue to grow beyond the region’s capacity” and that the Gateway project will be crucial to addressing that growth.

The report also predicted that in the decades ahead, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays would be busier commuting days going forward, “when hybrid workers are more likely to be in the office” and that it “will be impossible to accommodate this demand without the additional capacity that Gateway would add.”

Any delay in starting or completing the Hudson rail tunnel will “impede the tri-state region’s economic recovery,” the Regional Plan Association said.

Although Gateway could transform travel through the Northeast Corridor, it has encountered numerous obstacles, particularly during the Trump administration. A predecessor tunnel project, with full funding in place, was on the cusp of construction when it was canceled by then-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2010. Christie, a Republican, cited concerns about cost overruns and design shortcomings.

The Gateway Development Commission, established through bistate legislation, is overseeing financing and development of the project.

Money Needed

According to Gateway, the commission and its partners applied for mega grants, which are a new category of federal funds available for major infrastructure projects. In Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget $100 million was allocated for tunnel projects. A key portion of funds that Gateway is waiting on is capital investment grant funds, an existing pot of money available for infrastructure projects.

The project became eligible for federal money in January when the Federal Transit Administration raised its priority rating to “medium-high” from “medium-low.”

Kris Kolluri, a former New Jersey transportation commissioner, was approved to be the inaugural chief executive officer of the Gateway Development Commission that’s overseeing construction of the Hudson commuter tunnel.

Construction permits for Gateway are in place, but the project still requires $5.6 billion of federal money. Amtrak will pay $1.4 billion, while New York, New Jersey and the bistate Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are to pay a combined $6.1 billion.