NEW YORK — The much-delayed Hudson Tunnel project to build a new connection between New Jersey and New York’s Penn Station has received an additional $3.8 billion in federal funding.
The additional funding brings the federal commitment to the $16.1 billion tunnel project to more than $11 billion, Bloomberg reports. It was announced Friday by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at a event in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards area featuring Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and other officials. That event was to mark the start of construction on the third of a eries of underground concrete casings providing a connection between the tunnel and Penn Station.
“This is a day that I know that this city, this region, this country has been looking for and waiting for for a very long time,” Buttigieg said, while Hochul said “years of inaction, excuses, delays and the infighting are finally over. We’re now heralding in a new era of working not against each other but working together to accomplish great things.”
The New York Times reports work will also start this month in New Jersey on a highway realignment project necessary to allow for the tunneling to begin. Tunneling is expected to begin in 2025, with the tunnel opening 10 years later; after that will come work to refurbish the existing tunnels under the Hudson, which suffered significant damage in flooding from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Two sections of the casing were completed earlier. Amtrak explained in a press release that the third will run from 11th Avenue to 30th Street, where it will connect with the Hudson Tunnel. Renderings for that portion of the project, expected to be completed in summer 2026, were unveiled Friday.
Another big project that should have been started and built years ago long before we had Superstorm Sandy and a host of other natural disasters and climate changes. But this is the sad state of having the government getting involved with planning and building any major project as well as committing public funds for construction. The old brailroad and tunnel builders and the Pennsylvannia Railroad who built both the old Penn Station as well as the tunnels under the Hudson River and East River knew how to plan and build and got these massive engineering feats completed in record time and with private funding. And to think that all this was done with engineering methods and tools and equipment that was by today’s modern standards and technology primitive and dated. Maybe in 50 years we might actually see the new tunnels built and trains rolling through but let’s hope that our exisitng tunnels don’t run the risk of springing a major leak or flood or any other natural disaters or storms that would flood out the exisiting tunnels. However these old tunnels were built to last and were built very sturdy and string not like the stuff that is built today and don’t last. An example of this Just look at the Howard Street tunnel in Baltimore. Built when Grant was in office in 1873 which is now this year 150 years old and still standing strong while hundreds of trains roll through each year. and most likely will still be doing so for many more years to come and while the new replacement tunnels are constructed and will take several years to build and complete.
Joseph C. Markfelder
It will be lucky if it is done in ten years and it will require billions more of taxpayer funding before it is ever completed.
Taxpayer funded not federally funded.
Far from finally. This is Phase 3 of many phases, not counting the replacement “PORTAL” movable bridge in NJ which is a separate project, and is now under construction.
Hudson Yard is not an Amtrak facility; it is an LIRR storage yard in Manhattan so LIRR trains can continue through Penn Station and do not have to return under the East River to the LIRR yards in Queens.
Can’t call it a “big dig” Boston already has that title, so I guess we will call it a “super dig”.
“Hudson Tubes” is taken. Try something with the state’s name, “New Joisy”.
Yes finally a decade after Super Storm Sandy they are starting to build an alternative.
Finally!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün