The Biden administration is awarding a $6.9 billion grant to help build a long-planned passenger rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, federal transportation officials announced Thursday, part of a critical connection to the rest of the Northeast Corridor.
“This is a giant leap forward,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted while marking the grant from the Federal Transit Administration — the largest federal transit grant ever awarded.
The funding provides a path to construction for the new tunnel and rehabilitation of the existing tunnel to create a four-track system between New Jersey and Manhattan’s Penn Station, project officials say. That expansion is critical to eliminating one of the biggest bottlenecks in Amtrak’s Washington-to-New York corridor — the only crossing for passenger trains from New Jersey into the nation’s largest city.
Brian Fritsch, of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit that promotes projects in the New York metro area, said the federal funding guarantees construction will begin this year on both sides of the river. It also brings the project closer to being fully funded, Fritsch said.
“By advancing into the Engineering Phase, the project moves from planning to reality, ensuring we will build the 21st-century transportation system that our environment needs, that our nation’s economy relies on, and that trans-Hudson riders deserve,” he said in a statement.
Despite upgrades in recent decades, the crossing — used by more than 400 passenger trains each weekday — has not kept up with modern rail technology. At more than a century old, it is showing its age.
The concrete lining of the two single-track tunnels is worn. Water saturation has undermined the ground beneath the track ballast. The tunnel size creates a tight squeeze for modern train operations. Saltwater from Superstorm Sandy ravaged the electrical system, leading to signal problems that delay hundreds of thousands of passengers on commuter and intercity trains.
In January, the project was awarded a $292 million federal grant, which project officials said would be used to build an extension of the concrete tunnel casing on the New York side.
The 2.4-mile Hudson River Tunnel will be built by boring a trench and lowering preconstructed, sealed segments of concrete into the water. Some sections could be as much as 250 feet deep. After the new tunnel is built, officials will close the old tunnel for rehabilitation. Once both are open, commuter and passenger rail capacity will greatly increase.
Work on the new tunnel and overhaul of the existing tunnel are expected to take about a decade. Early construction work is expected this year with major construction beginning in 2024, officials said.
The Federal Transit Administration said it expects a funding commitment to the project of $6.88 billion, subject to annual congressional appropriations.
The project — one of the largest in American history — will create 72,000 jobs in the New York region and eventually improve more than 200,000 commuter trips daily, the FTA said. In 2020, commuters were delayed more than 210 hours in the tunnel because of maintenance issues, according to a Northeast Corridor Commission study.
“Hundreds of thousands of Americans travel under the Hudson River every day, not just between New York and New Jersey but between points all along the East Coast,” FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez said in a statement. “FTA is proud to invest in the Hudson River Tunnel … so these rails can continue to carry millions of people and billions of dollars that help define our country’s economy every year.”
The Gateway Development Commission, which coordinates the project, said last year that it would seek more federal grants to reduce the reliance on other financing and ultimately bring down costs. Stephen Sigmund, spokesman for the commission, said Thursday that the group was “thrilled” by the injection of federal money.
The commission on Thursday said it had received a letter from the FTA upgrading the project to the engineering phase of its Capital Investment Grants program. The move clears the way for the project to receive the vast majority of the federal funding needed for construction, the commission said.
Amtrak, which owns the existing tunnel, welcomed the news as an “important milestone” for the long-delayed project and applauded federal and regional commitments to the plan.
“We are thrilled to be even closer to the start of major construction on this critical Gateway Program project,” said Laura Mason, Amtrak’s executive vice president for capital delivery.