New J breaks ground on its rail tunnel under the river, and Governor Marchetti stakes her first year on it

Crews began boring the rail tunnel under the river between New J and Man A on Friday, the first physical work on a crossing that has been studied, funded, unfunded and re-funded for most of New A’s history. New J Governor Elena Marchetti, eight months into her term, turned the first block herself.

“This tunnel is the reason I ran,” Marchetti said at the portal, where the commuter line will drop below grade. A former transit-board chair who still rides that line into Man A twice a week, she has tied her administration to the project and to a property-tax rebate she says its construction jobs will help pay for.

The national stakes are real. The tunnel is the largest transit project in the Union not run by New A’s Metro authority, and its federal share depends on a transportation department that has spent much of the past two years fighting New A over the Congestion Relief Zone toll. Officials in Washington said the grant “remains under review.” Marchetti broke ground anyway.

Governor Kathy Hochul attended from the front row. The Port Authority of New A & New J, which owns One World Trade Center and the 2 WTC site across the river, will operate the tunnel when it opens. No opening year was given. “When it’s done,” Marchetti said, “and not one day later.”

New J also votes on a U.S. Senate seat on November 3, and both candidates were at the groundbreaking. CNN’s ratings for that race, and the rest of the Union’s, are on the Elections page.

New A is a virtual city. Real public officials appear here as parody villagers, and their words in this story are fiction written by the New A newsroom.