Two tunnel boring machines began operation Sept. 28 for the first new tunnel under the Hudson River in over a century began at a hillside below Tonnelle Ave in North Bergen, N.J. with an official groundbreaking ceremony.
The TBMs will carve two tubes through the rocky Palisades hillside, a major milestone for the Gateway Program. The Palisades Tunnel Project is being undertaken by a Schiavone-Lane-Dragados joint venture. “Reaching this stage reflects the hard work of everyone who has helped move the project forward,” JV project manager Francesco Chiappalone said at the event.
Once the first tunnels are excavated through to the New Jersey shore of the Hudson River, they will be swapped out for a second set of TBMs better suited to dig through the softer, less-stable soils beneath the river. Work has already begun on the Manhattan side of the project, with preparations for an access shaft on land and soil stabilization efforts on the riverbed.
The first of the project’s ten construction packages, a surface alignment project at the New Jersey approach, was completed earlier this year. Six other packages, including the Palisades Tunnel, are currently underway.
“The Hudson Tunnel Project will finally fix one of the key weaknesses in our region’s rail network, and we will feel the benefits for generations,” said New York Gateway Development Commission Co-chair Alicia Glenn. “Starting tunnel boring sends a clear signal: we are getting this tunnel done.”
Graphic courtesy GDC
The twin Herrenknecht TBMs delivered last March are now both staged to begin drilling. They are single-shield boring machines, sporting 28-ft, 8-in.-dia cutterheads with 500-ft-long gantries. Each TBM is able to place precast concrete liners in the tunnel bore around it as it advances, reducing the amount of work needed later to complete the tunnels.
It’s roughly 5,100 ft through the Palisades Sill to the Weehawken, N.J., exit pit, and project leaders estimate the TBMs will advance about 30 ft per day, completing their journeys in about one year.
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“The Hudson Tunnel Project is far more than a New York-New Jersey project, it is a critical investment in America,” said Amtrak GDC Commissioner and Vice Chair Tony Coscia. “The Northeast Corridor is the busiest passenger rail line in the country, and right now it depends on a tunnel that was built by hand a decade before the first commercial radio broadcast.”
Federal Funding Freezes Overcome
The project has faced headwinds from federal officials, who have tried multiple times to claw back funding for the project. The most recent appeal to halt the funds about one month ago ended two weeks later when the Trump administration came to an agreement to end its challenge in the federal appellate court in New York City.
The administration had previously moved last September to freeze the federal funds, leading to a slowdown and a pause of work on the project that threatened its schedule before funding was restored weeks later by court order.
“We fought and beat efforts from the Trump administration to halt the Gateway project and today, that dream becomes a reality, with state-of-the-art machinery operated by expert union workers starting their journey through soil and bedrock under the Hudson to Penn Station,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said at the event. Other political leaders echoed that sentiment, with New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) touting her time previously spent as a “tunnel-obsessed congresswoman,” adding that she “will keep fighting until this tunnel is built, so 100,000 jobs will be delivered, and millions of New Jersey commuters and travelers finally have the reliable service they deserve.”
Kris Kolluri, former Gateway Developmrnt Commission chief who now leads both NJ TRANSIT and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, said that “Having led the [commission] during a critical period for the Hudson Tunnel Project, and securing the largest federal grant for a mass transit project in U.S. history, I saw firsthand what it took to move this project from concept to construction. The start of tunnel boring brings us another significant step closer to the modern, resilient infrastructure our customers and the entire Northeast Corridor depend on.”
