Chris Christie's Dead Tunnel Gives Way to One Costing Billions More
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie listens to Pope Francis as he addresses a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on Sept. 24, 2015, in Washington.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesDigging a train tunnel is one trick. Try navigating bedrock and muddy funk, tremendous water pressure and a 19th-century bulkhead that keeps the Hudson River more or less out of Manhattan. Mind the pollutants and politics.
That’s the challenge ahead for the Gateway, a new underground crossing that still needs funding, may cost at least $20 billion and will finish in 2030 at the earliest. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is backing the project -- five years after canceling a $12.4 billion replacement of a crumbling rail link to New York City that would have opened in 2017 -- as he runs for president and feels the wrath of commuters frustrated by delays and rising fares.