Many of New Jersey’s state senators, including senate president Steve Sweeney and Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, hope that president-elect Donald Trump will make good on his promise to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure by making the Gateway Tunnel project a priority.
The Gateway Project would build two new tunnels to replace the 108 year old existing tunnels, which suffered extensive damage from superstorm Sandy.
Governor Chris Christie first rose to stardom in the Republican Party in 2010 by rejecting the $8.7 billion ARC project, which would have replaced those aging tunnels.
The new Gateway Project is now expected to cost $23 billion.
But don’t expect Trump to make good on those infrastructure promises. Recall that President Obama lobbied hard to invest in the nation’s infrastructure to lead the country out of the economic recession he inherited from George Bush. The Republicans in congress fought him at every turn and blocked most of what Obama tried to achieve.