Former MTA honcho Tom Prendergast was appointed the top of the Gateway Growth Fee Thursday, liable for the sweeping $40 billion undertaking to dig a brand new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River and lay miles of latest prepare monitor by way of the New Jersey Meadowlands.
“The responsibility you’ve entrusted in me is significant — it’s not something I take lightly,” Prendergast mentioned following his unanimous approval by the undertaking commissioners.
“The Hudson Tunnel project is the most urgent project in the United States of America,” he mentioned, including, “Infrastructure is what built New York.”
Prendergast — who served as MTA chairman from 2013 to 2017 as a part of a 25-year profession on the company — involves the fee from infrastructure consulting agency AECOM, the place he’s been since 2020.
In his time on the head of the MTA, Prendergast oversaw the long-awaited opening of the primary part of the Second Ave. Subway. He additionally served at varied instances as the top of the Lengthy Island Rail Highway and New York Metropolis Transit and because the senior vice chairman for subways.
The large Gateway undertaking he now leads is supposed to ultimately double rail capability throughout the New Jersey Meadowlands and into New York Penn Station whereas modernizing and increasing an growing old part of the Northeast Hall rail line.
Preliminary work is underway on the crown jewel of the undertaking, the Hudson River Tunnel, which can join New York Penn to northern New Jersey with two new rail tubes. When that new tunnel is accomplished, crews will start repairs to the dual tubes of the 1910 North River Tunnel at present serving Penn Station.
The plan additionally consists of feeding these 4 river crossings with expanded tracks throughout the swamplands of New Jersey, a undertaking that entails changing the Portal Bridge in Kearny, N.J., in addition to including or rehabbing a number of smaller bridges within the Meadowlands, plus including monitor capability close to Secaucus Junction.
