New Jersey and New York officials gathered on Monday to announce a $6.8 billion deal for new rail tunnels that will run under the Hudson River.

The project is expected to ease travel into New York City.

Work began last fall at the Tonnelle Avenue station where two new tunnels will run beneath a new bridge.

In a speech on Monday, Gov. Phil Murphy focused on the lives it will impact saying, "To the operating engineer who's going to operate this piece of equipment behind me and his or her family, to the person trying to get into New York City from Jersey to get to work on time."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, "What this says is that New York and New Jersey, this region, still has the boldness, the audacity of visions where others do not."

The federal grant was approved last week, which means the Gateway Development Commission will award new construction contracts by the fall to start working on the tunnels themselves.

The commission will also upgrade the two existing tunnels. The project is expected to be finished in 2035. By then, commuters will have four tunnels leading to New York City.

"It creates the incentive to operate our trains better for all of us to make sure the outages, some of which we've experienced in recent weeks don't happen," says Tony Coscia, the Amtrak board chair.

New Jersey state Sen. Cory Booker also addressed Monday's crowd saying, "I know this is a regional project. People think of it in that way. They think of it as a project between New York and New Jersey but that's simply not true. This is a great American project."