- The Gateway Development Commission has selected the consortium formed by Lane Construction with its parent company Webuild for the excavation and construction of the Palisades Tunnel Project
- The contract includes constructing two twin tunnels approximately 1.6 kilometers long on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River
- Two gigantic TBMs will be used for the excavation, advancing underground at an estimated average speed of about 10 meters per day
- The overall project involves constructing a 3.8 km railway tunnel under the Hudson River to carry passenger trains between New Jersey and New York
- The line represents the only passenger rail link between Manhattan and New Jersey and regionally from Washington, D.C., to Boston
After years of planning, the Hudson Tunnel Project (HTP) to improve the railway connection between New York and New Jersey has begun. The first drilling contract for the tunnels, part of the $16 billion mega-project scheduled to be operational by 2035, has been awarded. This project will not only build a modern dual-tube railway tunnel but will also rehabilitate the current 114-year-old tunnel, which has become a choke point for rail traffic up and down the Northeast Corridor.
The Gateway Development Commission (GDC), responsible for the new infrastructure artery, selected the consortium formed by Lane Construction with its parent company Webuild, and Schiavone with its parent company Dragados, for the excavation and construction of the Palisades Tunnel package.
The TBMs that will dig the tunnel to New York City
The contract signed with the consortium led by Webuild is worth $465 million and includes the construction of the first mile, approximately 1.6 kilometers, of two twin tunnels with an internal diameter of 8 meters on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. Two gigantic Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) will be used for the excavation, advancing underground at an estimated average speed of about 10 meters per day. The contract covers the construction of the tunnel’s western portal near Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen, six cross-passages, and a shaft in Hoboken and Weehawken, Hudson County. Designed to be 36 meters deep and almost 37 meters wide, the shaft will be used to remove the TBMs once the excavation is complete.
The Palisades Tunnel Project is one of three tunnel boring projects included in the HTP. When complete, the new tunnel will run along the Northeast Corridor (NEC), from the Tonnelle Avenue portal and under the Hudson River to New York Penn Station (NYP).
21st Century Rail Travel from New Jersey to New York Penn Station
The HTP involves constructing a new 3.8 km (2.4 mile) railway tunnel under the Hudson River to carry passenger trains between New Jersey and New York and rehabilitating the existing two tracks, resulting in four modern tracks connecting the two states.
The existing North River Tunnel (NRT) is the only passenger rail link between New York City, New Jersey, and the rest of the Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C. to Boston. It was built in 1910 to early 20th-century standards and consists of two tracks—one inbound and one outbound—between New York and New Jersey.
This system is currently the cause of significant delays along the NEC, especially when service incidents occur. Train service, already increasingly unreliable due to the NRT’s age and outdated design, was further compromised by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which flooded both tubes with millions of liters of seawater, causing ongoing damage to its structural, mechanical, and electrical infrastructure.
Repairing the damage caused by Sandy would require closing each tube in the tunnel. According to the Department of Transportation, without building a second tunnel to maintain full service during repairs, operations would be drastically reduced and cost more than $100 million per day due to the region’s 20% contribution to the national economy, with more than half of that cost attributed to lost time and wages—an enormous impact that would affect the entire U.S. economy.
