KEARNY, New Jersey – NJ Transit and Amtrak have announced the Portal North Bridge has reached 50 percent completion during a ceremony at the construction site.
The new bridge is a fixed span that eliminates the need to open and close and will replace the current 114-year-old swing bridge, which opens for maritime traffic, resulting in a bottleneck along the busiest stretch of passenger rail in the country.
The new Portal North Bridge will rise 50 feet over the Hackensack River, nearly doubling the height clearance and will allow marine traffic to pass underneath without interrupting rail traffic.
The Portal North Bridge project will eliminate the 114-year-old swing bridge, which has been the enduring source of major service disruptions for NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak customers traveling on the Northeast Corridor.
The U.S. Department of Transportation, New Jersey, New York, and Amtrak are funding the project. In January 2021, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced a Full Funding Grant Agreement, which secured $766.5 million in Federal Transit Administration funding to support the project’s construction.
In October 2021, Murphy and NJ Transit approved a nearly $1.6 billion construction contract awarded to Skanska/Traylor Bros PNB Joint Venture to construct the new bridge. The contract represents the single largest construction award in NJ Transit’s history, officials said.
The Portal North Bridge project spans 2.44 miles of the Northeast Corridor line. It includes the construction of retaining walls, deep foundations, concrete piers, structural steel bridge spans, rail systems, demolition of the existing bridge, and related incidental works.
The Portal North Bridge project is a critical component of the larger Gateway Program, which will eventually double rail capacity between Newark and New York.
