Status: 04/23/2021 8:12 a.m.
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The subway network in New York is so ailing that at times the timetables were in danger. Now the city is hoping for emergency aid from the US president’s economic stimulus program.
From Antje Passenheim,
ARD-Studio New York
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New York is on the move, promises Andrew Cuomo. “We’re not just going to rebuild the city,” says the governor, “we’re going to reinvent it.” After the crippling pandemic. After four crippling Trump years in which the Republican threw a lot of clubs between the legs of his liberal hometown. “There is certainly more optimism than before,” says Christopher Jones. He is the chief planner for the New York Regional Planning Organization. It supports the authorities in improving the infrastructure. And she’s only just asked New Yorkers for their opinion.
Antje Passenheim
ARD-Studio New York
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Six billion dollars flow immediately
“57 percent of the people are optimistic about the future of this city,” says Jones. This is mainly due to the change of course in Washington – and the hope that the Big Apple will benefit greatly from the new president’s large infrastructure program.
Of the two trillion dollars with which Joe Biden wants to pep up networks, roads and rails, six billion should flow directly into the metropolis: “There are many expectations of how our roads will be used,” says Jones. This applies above all to the more environmentally friendly expansion of the transport network. “We will see more bike paths, more outdoor restaurants, more space for pedestrians.”
Spitzname “AMTRAK Joe”
Above all, the first financial injections have bailed the New York subway out of a jam. She had slipped even deeper into the crisis due to Corona. No passengers, huge repair needs. Without the aid package from Washington, the timetable would have had to be thinned out.
The head of the New York transport company, Patrick Foye, is counting on further support. “Every school kid in the US knows Biden’s nickname is ‘AMTRAK Joe’,” says Foye. “As a US Senator, he commuted from Wilmington to Washington on the AMTRAK train for 37 years. He has always been a big supporter of public transport. That is definitely a positive.”
Tunnel project resumed
It also helps another mammoth project that Trump’s Congress thwarted: a new rail tunnel from Manhattan to the mainland in New Jersey. Thousands of working people are currently commuting back and forth through dilapidated tubes under the Hudson River every day. A growing security risk, warns Governor Cuomo: “These carriers are over a hundred years old. They are completely rusted through.”
The new tunnel has long been in the planning stage. Even under the Obama administration, the contract for the “Gateway” project, which is supposed to relieve traffic under the Hudson, was awarded. The Trump administration blocked the tunnel. Biden pushed him again now. The project has become a priority again for New York’s transportation planners. “The Gateway project was waiting for some green lights from Washington,” says Jones. “And so things are moving forward now.”
Cash and Tunnel – New York benefits from Biden’s stimulus package
Antje Passenheim, ARD New York, April 20, 2021 2:51 p.m.
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