Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected future tunnel.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the tunnel approaches, and more information becomes available.

The Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel (also known as THE Tunnel) is a proposed railroad tunnel that would be built under the Hudson River, connecting New Jersey and New York. This new tunnel would add transportation capacity to the existing two-track railroad tunnels under the Hudson River, the North River Tunnels, used by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, that are already operating near full capacity.

The Tunnel would include:

two new tracks under the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades
a new six-track passenger station under 34th Street connecting with Pennsylvania Station
improvements in New Jersey to provide a one-seat ride to midtown Manhattan for New Jersey Transit riders on the Raritan Valley Line, Main Line/Bergen County Line and Pascack Valley Line
a rail storage yard in Kearny, New Jersey.

[edit] Current status

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced on July 19, 2006, its decision to allow preliminary engineering to begin on a second trans-Hudson rail tunnel between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan.^[1] Supporters called the FTA's announcement a positive sign that the federal government eventually intends to commit funding to the project.

The project is slated to begin construction in 2009 and for completion in 2016, at the earliest.

Ridership between the Garden State and Midtown Manhattan is projected to double to 100,000 rush-hour passengers daily by 2015. Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine has said he wants the tunnel to go to construction in 2009.

The preliminary engineering work is expected to cost $90 million and take 18 months to finish, and will include finalizing track alignment, determining how best to build the tunnel and coordinating efforts with Amtrak and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to minimize passenger disruptions during construction, according to officials. Another key component of the overall project is creation of a new rail terminal for NJ Transit passengers under 34th Street in Manhattan, located next to Penn Station.

Corzine committed $500 million of state funds to the entire project. Anthony Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a major project proponent, has said he wants the bistate agency to commit as much as $2 billion to the eventual cost of the new tunnel. In its December 2006 ten-year capital budget presentation, the Port Authority included $2 billion towards the new cross Hudson tunnel project.^[2]

On August 8, 2006, the NJ Transit Board of Directors awarded an $82.5 Million contract for initial engineering for the New Hudson Rail Tunnel.^[3]

On December 13, 2006, NJ Transit picked a construction management firm for the Trans-Hudson Express tunnel, known as the CM Consortium, a joint venture of Tishman Corp., Parsons Corp. and ARUP, to perform the construction management services for the project. Current cost projections for completion of the tunnel are $7.2 Billion.^[4]

On January 18, 2007, the Federal Transit Administration approved the draft environmental impact statement for the trans-Hudson tunnel. The approval will allow the Port Authority to conduct public hearings on the tunnel proposal.^[5]