Video, Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Celebrates Start of Tunnel Boring for Gateway Hudson Tunnel Project

Governor Kathy Hochul today celebrated the start of tunnel boring for the Hudson Tunnel Project by the Gateway Development Commission (GDC). Following the ceremonial launch, final testing will be completed and the first tunnel boring machine that will be used to build the new train tunnel under the Hudson River will begin digging the new connection between New Jersey and New York Penn Station. A second machine will launch soon after. This historic moment marks the start of the first phase of tunnel boring for the Hudson Tunnel Project - the first new rail tunnel under the river in more than 100 years. It is the culmination of more than a decade of planning and nearly three years of construction work.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Governor, pro tip for you, plastic sheets. You're still a rookie, plastic sheets next time, my speech is dry. I want to thank Governor Sherrill for heralding in a new era of partnership and collaboration. The first time two women have governed these two complicated states that had a history of little rough and tumble relationships - but we're about getting things done. I want to thank her today, but also for her advocacy in Congress for a long time, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Senator Schumer, who's been driving this as long as I've known him and Senator Booker and others. You are a great team in Congress. I thank you for that and now how wonderful it is to see you as Governor, to see this all the way through. Tom Prendergast, I've known you a long time, but this is a challenge that could only be handled by one man like you, the chairman of - the CEO of Gateway Development Commission. Let's get a round of applause to Tom Prendergast. And I will be introducing Senator Schumer and Senator Booker, great to see you and the entire delegation from New Jersey. Marie Therese Dominguez, the commissioner of the DOT for me. So when she's not cleaning up a mess from a big storm, we had a storm that had to get through here together, she is leading the charge and making sure we have infrastructure projects like this, Marie Therese Dominguez. Katherine Garcia, our executive director of the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey and Kevin O'Toole our chairman and many others who've been acknowledged.

But, of course, the men and women of labor. I want to thank all of you for showing up in the rain, in the cold, in the snow, the hot days, and Mike Hellstrom and all of you and Gary LaBarbera and all my friends and labor, I am grateful to know that you will build like nobody else can. My friends, the heir of an ambitious, abundant infrastructure has certainly arrived here in New York and New Jersey. Today we're beginning something that some may call boring. I think today is anything but boring. This is an exciting day for all of us. We're making a historic project on something that is long overdue for many, many years. The first new rail in 116 years, the first major improvements in a century. As you heard from the Governor, 200,000 daily riders rely on this. We know how difficult it is. The bottleneck that occurs when one train is delayed, but also in the process, and I come from a union family. I've got steelworkers, I've got plumbers, I've got electricians, I've got carpenters all in my family. I know the dignity of good union labor - what that union card means - and it makes me so proud to have 10,000 direct union jobs, almost 100,000 indirect jobs. Let's give another huge round of applause to the men and women who show up every day.

Now, many thought this day would never come. A lot of fits and starts, but here we are, back, right on schedule because we believe in getting things done with a sense of urgency. Gone are the days when something can be studied and let that sit on a shelf for another decade and people talk about it. It just doesn't work for us. Our entire economy cannot hinge on tunnels built over 100 years ago. It took us 17 years to get here. Some of you recall, and I'm not going to go down too far down memory lane here, but we were ready to go back in 2009. The ARC project was started and killed by a certain Governor but that's okay, we won't name names here today. But we set out to do what past leaders couldn't do. Again working with leaders like Senator Schumer and Senator Booker, and we had the Biden administration on our side. I'll never forget two milestones. One was when I was with Governor Murphy and we made an agreement that had been long talked about but never accomplished between New York and New Jersey to finally have a shared process moving forward. And then the next year, later in 2023, we still had President Joe Biden, who knew the significance of this project. He showed up in person to validate how important this was to the nation and certainly as the person, the president who rode the rails more than any other president in history - this meant something to him as well.

So we're excited about this project, securing the funds. We're going to sometimes have some disagreements, but we are committed to working together. And I'll say this was a fight. I'll never forget when this was shut down, we were stunned. How does the President shut this down, what happened there? I remember calling the president in mid December saying, "Mr. President, what's going on? You just killed thousands of union jobs. You're destroying our economy. What is this all about?" And it kept going. Finally, in February, I give another call, I said, "Mr. President, tomorrow morning I'm going down to meet with a thousand unemployed union workers who thought they had a job until you killed the project. What would you like me to tell them, Mr. President?"

So we end up in court as you heard from Governor Sherrill, we'll always go to court together. Same team, fight hard, win in court and continue on appeal. We're not letting this go away. People have worked too long and hard - so many people here who had this vision, who never gave up on this. We're not surrendering to anyone, this project must happen and it must happen now on schedule. Get out of our way.

I just want to say one more thing. I want to thank the Governor and all of the first responders and the teams that pulled together between New York and New Jersey. All the work you had to do to help us get through a brutal storm. But this nor'easter reminded us of our vulnerability of what happened with hurricane Sandy in 2012, back when I was in Congress. And I'll never forget, the federal government at the time said they would not help our region, they would not help our region. And our Senator had to fight hard tooth and nail to get it. But that was a wake up call of what could happen. The threats that could happen with one mega storm leaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded, paralyzing an entire economy that powers the rest of the nation.

So it wasn't a one off, as we're seeing now. The severity of storms is getting worse and worse and worse. That is why we are so fortunate to have this underway, this milestone accomplished and we will be done in 2034. Someone here today said 2035 - I'm saying 2034 - make it happen in 2034. So let's do this, nothing will stop us from building the modern, reliable train service people deserve. Nothing will stop us from digging this tunnel. Nothing will stop us from fighting for these good union jobs and I guarantee when you see New York and New Jersey working together, get out of our way, we're going to get great things done.

Thank you very much, everyone. I want to hand it over to someone who's been thinking about this probably longer than anybody in the entire country. That is our great champion for infrastructure, Senator Schumer.