The Federal Railroad Administration has reduced its contribution to two New York City-area rail projects announced last year by the Biden Administration, by a total amount of around $260 million. The projects are part of the “Gateway” portfolio of NYC-area Amtrak projects.

On April 22, FRA announced that the federal grant for the rehabilitation of the Dock Bridge over the Passaic River in New Jersey will be reduced from $375 million to around $235 million, a savings of $140 million.

This conflates direct federal funding, from the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail grant program, and Amtrak’s own money (some of which comes from federal subsidy grant). The federal FSP grant for this project was $300,184,000, to be matched with an Amtrak grant of $75,046,000 (an 80%/20% split).

The savings come from downsizing the scope of the rehabilitation of the bridge to exclude “unnecessary aesthetic costs like enhanced lighting” and to “defer some rehab work where structural elements still have a useful life.” By downsizing the project, FRA notes that “the completion time will be moved up nearly two years.”

Earlier, on April 17, FRA sent letters to Amtrak and to the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority announcing the downsizing of Penn Station project grants. The Biden Administration announced two grants for Penn Station projects on November 15, 2024, shown below, totaling $144.5 million.

Colloquially, the expansion and reconstruction projects were known as Penn-X and Penn-R, respectively.

In its April 17 letter to the MTA, FRA informed them that it is canceling the FSP grant for the Penn-R (rehabilitation) project. In the counterpart April 17 letter to Amtrak, FRA told them “FRA has
determined the necessary planning for reconstruction and expansion of Penn Station will be
conducted under a single grant, led by Amtrak…

“…In addition, FRA believes robust planning is necessary to ensure service objectives and
preliminary alternatives are based on updated ridership and operations analyses, as well as build
stakeholder support. FRA will work with Amtrak to assess and evaluate regional service options
to identify improvements with the goal of optimizing service and recognizing fiscal constraints.
FRA expects that Amtrak, in close coordination with FRA, will lead this effort. The additional
planning work will help to ensure the success of this ambitious and transformative passenger rail
improvement project while preserving accountability for any federal dollars that will be spent.

“FRA will reduce the amount of the award of Amtrak’s FY24 FSP-NEC grant by the appropriate
amount to reflect the focus on planning for reconstruction and expansion of Penn Station.”

A separate press release from the Secretary’s office estimated the savings from the grant cancelations and downsizing to total $120 million, which means that the Penn-X grant to Amtrak is being reduced from $72.0 million down to around $24.5 million.

When people hear “Gateway,” they think of the $16 billion Hudson River Tunnel. The tunnel is the centerpiece of the Gateway program, to be sure, but other Gateway projects include the Portal North Bridge replacement, construction of a new Portal South Bridge, replacement of the Sawtooth Bridges, Penn Station expansion, the Dock Bridge rehabilitation, expansion of rail service trackage around Secaucus, and other projects.