In the Three Years Since the EIS was Frozen, 11 Different Champions Have Been Crowned in Four US Major Sports Leagues

NEW YORK, NY - After more than three years of counting the time since the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) missed their self-imposed deadline of March 30th, 2018 to respond to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Hudson Tunnel Project, the Build Gateway Now Coalition finally stopped their ​“count-up clock” after a new deadline of May 28th, 2021 for the Record of Decision was set. The Build Gateway Now Coalition applauds the Federal Administration’s swift change in direction to support the advancement of the Hudson Tunnel project.

The ​“count-up clock” - first unveiled at a coalition press conference at New York Penn Station - marked a total of 3 years, 10 days, 19 hours, 25 minutes, and 21 seconds without a Record of Decision from the Federal Government or a clearly articulated new deadline. A Record of Decision is a crucial step for the project, which will allow important pre-construction work, such as property acquisition, to take place.

Much has changed in the 1106 days since the FRA deadline was missed, including:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average had 415 days of gains and 346 days of losses totaling 68,968.96 points of daily closing gains and -66,086.3 points of daily closing losses, respectively.
• There have been 11 different MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL champions. Only the Golden State Warriors (2018 and 2019) have been champions of their league twice during that time.
• Both branches of Congress and the White House changed parties. All told there have been 160 new Representatives in the House and 18 new Senators.
• Zoom, Slack, and Peloton were relatively small privately held companies in 2018. They are now large public companies and become ubiquitous.

“We could not be happier that the Biden Administration and Secretary Buttigieg have prioritized moving the Hudson Tunnel project forward,” said Brian Fritsch, Campaign Manager of the Build Gateway Now Coalition. ​“At 110-years-old and facing numerous challenges, we cannot afford one more day of delay before fixing the busiest stretch of rail in the country which contributes 20% of the nation’s GDP. As a coalition, we look forward to advancing all the elements of the Gateway Program to make our region more competitive and put over 28,600 people back to work building the infrastructure we need to thrive.”