Hudson Tunnel Project To Move Forward

The tunnel linking New Jersey and New York by train under the Hudson River, first built more than a century ago, will undergo a $16 billion repair and expansion project starting in 2024 after the Gateway Development Commission took control of the project in September. As Dan Zukowski explains in Smart Cities Dive, “Legislation enacted separately by New York and New Jersey created the GDC in 2019. The commissioners include representatives of both states and Amtrak, which owns the tunnel and the rail line.”

Zukowski describes the project’s decade-plus history, noting that, despite a series of past delays, “With a more Amtrak-friendly Biden White House and money from the bipartisan infrastructure law, the tunnel project looks to be moving ahead.”

“Plans to add capacity with an additional tunnel go back to at least 2009, when work began on a project killed a year later by then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. But Superstorm Sandy in 2012 flooded the tunnels with saltwater, damaging electrical and mechanical equipment and creating cracks in the concrete walls.”

The project could be completed in 2035. “After completing the new tunnel, the GDC will spend three years rehabilitating the existing tunnels, ultimately doubling track capacity to reduce delays and increase service.”