Issue Position: Leading on Transportation Issues

Issue Position

Issue Position: Leading on Transportation Issues

In addition to his involvement in top-tier judicial issues, Congressman Nadler is also a longstanding and nationally recognized expert on transportation. During his 16 years as a New York State Assemblyman, Nadler was able to match his ideas for improving transportation and infrastructure with legislative solutions. In this capacity he founded and chaired the Assembly's Mass Transit and Rail Freight Subcommittee. Since his election to the U.S. House, he has brought that expertise and enthusiasm to work for New York as a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He is now the highest-ranking Democrat from the Northeast, and co-chair of the Congressional Transit Caucus, where he's fought for better subway service and New York's fair share of mass transit funding.

Congressman Nadler stood virtually alone for many years in decrying the downstate New York region's isolation from the national rail freight system and its almost total reliance on truck-borne freight. Such dependence has created enormous costs to the area in terms of increased air pollution, asthma, congestion, and the general expense of doing business in the region. More alarming, the region's over-dependence on the George Washington Bridge for moving freight creates a serious national security vulnerability.

Congressman Nadler proposed to reverse these effects by reconnecting New York to the nation's rail freight system through the construction of a rail freight tunnel under New York Harbor. The Cross Harbor Tunnel project is steadily gaining momentum. Local, state, and federal leaders agree with Congressman Nadler and a variety of transportation experts that a rail freight tunnel is the best way to ease the truck-traffic burden, and in doing so, reduce air pollution, provide tremendous economic benefits, and bolster security by creating redundancy in the region's goods-movement system.

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