# Man Who Spent $400 Billion Trying To Build A Train To New Jersey Finally Loses Mind, Sues Everyone
Look, I get it. New Jersey sucks. We can all agree on that. But spending $400 billion over 20 years trying to build a train tunnel under the Hudson River so people can get from New Jersey to New York slightly faster is, objectively, the most New Jersey thing that has ever happened. And now, the guy who's been running this disaster is doing what any reasonable person would do when their project is a decade behind schedule and billions over budget: he's suing everyone.
If you've been living under a rock—or, more appropriately, under the Hudson River, where this tunnel is supposed to be—let me catch you up. The Hudson River Gateway Project is the infrastructure equivalent of that one friend who keeps saying they're going to start going to the gym "next week." It's been "next week" since 2010. The idea is simple: build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson so that the 200,000 people who commute from New Jersey to New York every day don't have to rely on a tunnel that was built when Grover Cleveland was president and hasn't been maintained since the Reagan administration.
But here's where it gets spicy. The Gateway Project, which was supposed to be a nice, simple $10 billion tunnel, has somehow ballooned into a $16 billion boondoggle that might not be finished until 2035. And now, the guy running the thing, some absolute legend named Stephen Gardner (who is the CEO of Amtrak, which is basically the government's attempt to run a train company like it's still 1952), has decided that the best way to fix this mess is to sue the federal government.
Yes, you read that correctly. The man who is supposed to be building a train tunnel is suing the people who are supposed to be paying for it. Because that's how infrastructure works in America. We don't build things; we litigate about building things.
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court last week, is against the Federal Railroad Administration and the Department of Transportation. Gardner is claiming that the feds are dragging their feet on approving permits and releasing funding. Which is rich, considering that Amtrak has been dragging its feet on actually building anything for the better part of two decades.
Let me break this down for you in terms that make sense: imagine you're a contractor who promised to build a deck for someone's house. You show up 10 years late, you've already spent triple what you quoted, and the deck is just a pile of wood in the yard. Then you sue the homeowner because they didn't give you the right kind of nails fast enough. That's basically what's happening here.
The Gateway Project has become a classic American tragedy. We've got all the elements: government bureaucracy, cost overruns that could fund a small country, a timeline so long that half the people who need this tunnel will be dead by the time it opens, and now, a lawsuit that will probably take another 10 years to resolve. It's like the Simpsons episode where they try to build a monorail, but without the catchy musical number.
Here's what's actually happening: Amtrak and New Jersey Transit (which is a whole other level of incompetence) want to build a new tunnel because the current one, the North River Tunnel, is literally falling apart. It was built in 1910. It got flooded with saltwater during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and it's been held together with duct tape and prayers ever since. If that tunnel fails—which it will, eventually—the entire Northeast Corridor train system collapses. That's not hyperbole. That's what happens when you run 200,000 people through a tunnel that was built when your great-grandparents were in diapers.
But instead of, you know, building the damn tunnel, we've spent the last 15 years arguing about who should pay for it. New Jersey says New York should pay. New York says the federal government should pay. The federal government says Amtrak should pay. Amtrak says, "lol we have no money." And now Amtrak is suing the federal government to force them to pay. It's the circle of life, but for incompetent bureaucrats.
The lawsuit is asking a judge to order the feds to release $6.3 billion in funding that was already approved by Congress. Because nothing says "efficient use of government resources" like spending millions of dollars on lawyers to get money that was already allocated. That $6.3 billion could have built, like, three tunnels by now. Instead, it's going to be tied up in court for the next five years while lawyers argue about whether the word "shall" in a 2015 funding bill actually means "shall" or "maybe if we feel like it."
And the best part? Even if Gardner wins this lawsuit, it doesn't mean the tunnel gets built. It just means the legal fight moves to the next phase. Then there's the environmental impact studies, the community meetings where NIMBYs from Jersey City complain about construction noise, the procurement process for contractors, the union negotiations, and about 47 other steps that will push the completion date to 2050.
Meanwhile, the existing tunnel continues to crumble. Every day, 450 trains go through a tunnel that's operating at 150% of its designed capacity. That's like running a marathon while carrying a refrigerator. Eventually, something's going to give. And when it does, everyone from Washington to Boston is going to be wondering why we didn't build the tunnel when we had the chance.
But hey, at least we're suing someone about it. That's progress, right?
The real tragedy here is that this isn't even the first time this has happened. Remember the ARC Tunnel? That was the previous attempt to build a new Hudson River tunnel, which was cancelled in 2010 by then-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He famously said the project was "dead" because of cost overruns. That was 14 years ago. Since then, the cost of the current project has actually increased, and we're no closer to breaking ground than we were when Christie killed the last one.
Final Thoughts
Having covered infrastructure battles for decades, one thing is clear: the Hudson River Gateway lawsuit is less about environmental nuance and more a political chess match over the nation's crumbling rail spine. While the legal challenges claim procedural grievances, the real-life cost is measured in thousands of commuters stranded daily beneath the river—a price tag that no court ruling can justify. Ultimately, if this project stalls further, it won’t be the lawyers or the judges who pay the price, but the millions of Northeast travelers who are already hostages to a system past its breaking point.