Fix our crumbling infrastructure by starting with the Gateway Program

Infrastructure across the country is crumbling, and one piece in particular has the capability of crippling both the transportation network and the economy of the entire Northeast region. The Northeast rail corridor, which is a 457-mile line connecting Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, links the largest concentration of people, jobs and economic productivity in the United States.

It ties together our global centers for education, health care, technology, media and finance, all of which are expected to fuel economic growth in the next century. The region’s 52 million residents produce over $3 trillion in economic output, more than France, Italy and Canada. More than 20 percent of all U.S. jobs are in the Northeast corridor, a third of which are located less than five miles from a train station.

{mosads}The main line has the busiest and most complex operations of any section in the Western Hemisphere. On a given day, approximately 820,000 trips are made and more than 2,100 trains operate. In 2017, that amounted to 260 million passenger trips, a figure that is projected to double over the next 25 years. If we don’t act soon, it could all collapse.

Tragically, this rail network has been allowed to deteriorate to the point of disrepair. The two tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey were built in 1908, the same year Ford’s first Model T rolled off the assembly line. They have been ravaged by both old age and flooding caused by Superstorm Sandy, resulting in frequent closures and delays for the 200,000 daily passengers. With people and businesses continually moving to the area, there is no question that our existing infrastructure will not endure.

Current disruptions on the line cost our economy an estimated $500 million per year in lost productivity. But this is about more than dollars and cents. Simply put, the tunnels cannot sustain themselves, and we are risking the safety of commuters. For these reasons, and many more, the rehabilitation of the rail corridor and the Gateway Program, which would repair the two current tubes and construct two new passenger rail tunnels, is the country’s most critical infrastructure development of the last two decades.

Combined with expanded capacity at New York’s Penn Station, the project would transform the commute of hundreds of thousands of people and provide access to new jobs, industries and economic opportunities, all while ensuring the stability of our nation’s economy. The Gateway Program would also create 72,000 jobs over the next 11 years in New York and New Jersey alone, not to mention the additional jobs created to repair other areas of the corridor.

The sad truth is that this is hardly the only piece of infrastructure in the country that has been neglected. Rather, the Northeast rail corridor and the Hudson River tunnels are the poster child of a national failure to invest in our infrastructure, including much needed repairs to I-95 roadways and bridges down the Eastern seaboard, the dredging of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, the extension of Union Station in Washington, D.C., the expansion of wind farms in Wyoming, the Texas Central Railway project, and the rehabilitation of our nation’s dam and hydroelectric plants.

America has also yet to build high-speed rail and hasn’t constructed a new airport in over 20 years. For far too long, our citizens and our economy have relied on the roads, bridges, tunnels and rail networks that were built a century ago, and it is finally catching up with us. According to the American Council of Engineering Companies, there is $1 trillion worth of infrastructure in the United States in need of repair or reconstruction.

Washington’s focus is now finally shifting to infrastructure with President Trump’s $1 trillion proposal. It’s time to put aside political differences and unite behind a truly bipartisan plan. The tribalism that has consumed our politics cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the greater good for the American people.

This is not about blue states or red states. This is an entire region of the United States that is at risk. The time is now for the federal government to invest in infrastructure nationwide and improve the lives of countless Americans. We must begin with the Gateway Program.

Carlo A. Scissura is president of the New York Building Congress.