Hello, I’m Brian Fritsch, Regional Plan Association’s Communications Director and the Campaign Manager for the Build Gateway Now Coalition.

As 2022 comes to an end, it’s worth recognizing the tremendous progress made this year by the GDC and project partners. In the past year, Governors Murphy and Hochul signed the MOU codifying funding and the GDC became the official project sponsor of the Hudson Tunnel Project. Construction began on Portal North Bridge, and the cost/schedule analysis for the Hudson Tunnel project was updated. And most recently, the GDC and project partners successfully submitted the Full Funding Grant Agreement application. There is a great amount of momentum heading into 2023. It was not a quiet year!

The Private Sector will be critical to advancing the projects further, particularly around developing and negotiating contracts. It’s noteworthy that private-sector cooperation was extremely helpful in advancing the Hudson Tunnel project’s early planning, even before the EIS was approved. Much additional work needs to be done as the project starts pre-construction. The cooperation between Gateway advocates within the public and private spheres is as paramount as ever as we enter this phase.

Facilitating cooperation across industries is part of why the Build Gateway Now coalition exists; we span industries, sectors and expertise but share the common goal of advocating for this project by working together to support the GDC and project sponsors. As advocates, we’ve spent much of this year discussing these projects with the public and the press, conducting original research, and creating tools to highlight the many positive elements of the Gateway Program and the dire consequences to the environment and economy if we fail to act. We look forward to continuing this work as the Hudson Tunnel Project enters into its engineering phase in 2023.

Thank you to the Gateway Development Commission for inviting public comments today.