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Contractors for the $16 billion Hudson Tunnel project are ready to dig.
The first set of TBMs because the massive rail project will soon begin chewing through 5,100 feet of rock beneath the Palisades Cliffs in New Jersey, according to a Monday press release from the Gateway Development Commission. Project stakeholders held a ceremonial launch Monday morning, with the first machine scheduled to begin boring in the coming days, GDC confirmed with Construction Dive.
“It’s been more than a century since a rail tunnel was last dug through these cliffs,” New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill said during the event. “I was asked how many of these boring machines there are in the world, and the answer is this. Each one is specifically designed for the specific job at hand.”
A joint venture of Schiavone Construction, Lane Construction and Dragados will complete the first phase of tunnel boring as part of the Palisades Tunnel construction package, according to GDC. In partnership with the commission, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will manage the delivery of the construction package.
The machines will carry parallel tubes from the tunnel portal in North Bergen, New Jersey, to the Hudson County Access Shaft on the border of Weehawken and Hoboken, according to the release. The machine’s cutting head is 28 feet, 8 inches in diameter, and the rear gantry extends approximately 500 feet, according to the GDC. Each machine weighs more than 1,680 tons.
Rotating cutting heads equipped with disc cutters will break the hard rock of the Palisades into chips, which will then be fed out of the tunnel by a conveyor belt. As the machine moves forward, an erector arm will place segments of precast concrete to form the tunnel’s permanent lining. According to the release, hydraulic jacks will be attached to the edges of the completed tunnel lining to push the machine forward.
“These machines are incredible,” U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at the event. “They’re certainly not boring.”
A turbulent year
Schumer discussed the construction challenges of the construction, as well as other obstacles the project has faced.
“The rock is so hard that it only moves 30 feet a day,” Schumer said during the event. “That’s why we can’t let anyone stop it. We have to keep going and going until these machines reach the other side of the river.”
Construction resumed earlier this year on the Hudson Tunnel project after a The federal funding dispute halted work. A federal judge later banned the Department of Transportation withholding of funds about their underprivileged business program.
In April, GDC awarded a $1.29 billion contract to a joint venture of Traylor Bros., Walsh Construction and Skanska for the Manhattan Tunnel project. The award moved all construction packages required to bore the new tunnel into active construction.
“We’ve taken the Trump administration to court five times to keep this project going, and we’ve won five times,” Sherrill said. “We’ll keep fighting, even if it takes a few more trips to court.”
Years of work
Getting the machines to this point required nearly three years of construction progress, Sherrill said.
Beginning in late 2023, contractors built a bridge to support a section of Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen. Crews created space under the highway for machine gantries and excavated the launch box where TBMs will begin excavating, according to the GDC.
The manufacture of the tunnel boring machines took place in parallel with this work and lasted more than a year. A single machine consists of nearly 100 complex components, according to the statement.
“It’s a mechanical marvel,” Sherrill said during the event. “The workers here have spent the last few months reassembling and testing it, so it’s ready for today’s launch.”
Once the first pair of tunnel borers reach the Hudson County access shaft, crews will remove them and replace them with a second pair of machines to build the tunnel section under the Hudson River, according to the GDC. Once completed, the new two-tube rail tunnel will run between New Jersey and New York.
“We still have a lot of work to do, and knowing some of the politicians in Washington, there will still be attempts to slow this project,” Sen. Cory Booker, DN.J., said during the event. “But I know that when it’s all said and done, generations yet to be born will benefit from the work we’ve done.”
