Amtrak’s New York-to-D.C. Fixes Leave Biggest Worries Unresolved
- New stations, faster speeds along nation’s busiest train route
- Billions spent in vain if Hudson tunnel, rail bridges falter
Along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, roughly $3.4 billion in improvements are underway to bring faster, more reliable service to the busiest rail route in the U.S. Yet the region’s biggest and most important infrastructure project remains unfunded, a failure that threatens service to 820,000 regional and commuter passengers each workday.
Station renovations, high-speed track, power lines and signals -- all decades-deferred work that has begun -- will be for naught if century-old infrastructure under the Hudson River crumbles. In all, Amtrak needs at least $37 billion for improvements from New York to Washington, D.C., with the bulk of it -- $30 billion -- for Gateway, which would include replacing a rickety bridge, building a second tunnel linking New Jersey to Manhattan and overhauling an existing one whose days are numbered.