The Biden administration has given the largest-ever federal grant for any mass transit project to the Hudson Tunnel Project. The $6.9 billion grant will fund the construction of two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Penn Station in New York City. The Washington Post reported that the entire project will cost $16.1 billion. The new tunnels, expected to be completed by 2035, will supplement the existing pair of congested tunnels built 113 years ago by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The current North River Tunnels are a pair of 2.8-mile-long single-track tunnels. They have a maximum capacity of 24 crossings per hour in either direction. A train every two and a half minutes might sound adequate, but the tunnels are shared between NJ Transit’s commuter trains and Amtrak’s services along the Northeast Corridor. The expansion plans will see a second set of tunnels built with the same capacity. When completed, the original set of tunnels will be temporarily closed for three years to be modernized and repair damage caused by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The end result would double capacity at the notorious bottleneck.
Before the North River Tunnels opened in 1910, railroad services would terminate on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, and passengers would have to take a ferry across the river. The Pennsylvania Railroad project was an incredible engineering feat considering the width of the Hudson and how densely populated Manhattan was. The railroad initially planned to build a monumental bridge into Manhattan, demolishing a large part of the city to create suitable grading for trains up to the bridge. The link allowed direct rail services between New York City and the rest of the country west of the city.
Over a century later, a significant portion of the American economy relies on trains being able to pass through the tunnels, from commuters heading into New York City to longer-distance travelers header up to Boston or down to Washington D.C.