Gateway Development Commission Celebrates Start of Tunnel Boring for Hudson Tunnel Project

The Gateway Development Commission celebrated the start of tunnel boring for the Hudson Tunnel Project.

The new tunnel under the Hudson River will be bored using two sets of two tunnel boring machines – four machines total. Each pair of tunnel boring machines will build the two parallel tunnel tubes simultaneously.

The two machines launching in the coming weeks will bore 5,100 feet through the Palisades Cliffs, from the tunnel portal in North Bergen to the Hudson County Access Shaft on the border of Weehawken and Hoboken.

The machines will be removed via the access shaft, and a second pair of tunnel boring machines optimized for the mixed ground conditions under the Hudson River will be inserted to build the stretch of the tunnel tubes from New Jersey to Manhattan.

In the coming days, final testing will be completed and the first tunnel boring machine that will be used to build the new train tunnel under the Hudson River will begin digging. A second machine will launch soon after.

This historic moment marks the start of the first phase of tunnel boring for the Hudson Tunnel Project – the first new rail tunnel under the river in more than 100 years. It is the culmination of more than a decade of planning and nearly three years of construction work.

The two tunnel boring machines launching this fall will bore approximately one mile through the hard rock under the Palisades Cliffs in New Jersey to the Hudson County Access Shaft on the border of Weehawken and Hoboken. These two machines will be removed via the access shaft and replaced with a second pair of machines that will build the section of the tunnel under the Hudson River.

The two hard-rock tunnel boring machines are expected to build roughly 30 feet of tunnel per day, including scheduled pauses for maintenance. They will reach the Hudson County Access Shaft approximately one year after launching.

The first phase of tunnel boring is being completed by Schiavone Lane Dragados JV as part of the contract for the Palisades Tunnel Project construction package. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is managing delivery of this construction package in partnership with GDC.