A ceremonial switch was flipped in New Jersey to start one of two tunnel boring machines that will help build a new rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, advancing the $16 billion Gateway Tunnel project.<\/p>\n
The tunnel will add redundancy and eventually more capacity for trains between the two states and allow the current 116-year-old tunnel to be repaired once completed.<\/p>\n
The 1,700-ton machines are 500 feet long, with cutter heads more than 28 feet wide.<\/p>\n
At least 40 people will operate the machines as they carve two tubes through the New Jersey Palisades over the next year, with each tube eventually carrying one track.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we\u2019re beginning something that some may call boring. I think today is anything but boring,\u201d New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said during the ceremony.<\/p>\n
James Starace, chief of program delivery for the Gateway Development Commission, said the machines will cut and break rock, move it through cutter head openings onto a conveyor and carry it to carts that will be railed out from the back of the machine.<\/p>\n
The conveyor will also move precast tunnel liner sections that will be installed as the machines advance.<\/p>\n
The machines now being used were custom built to push through the Palisades to the Hudson River.<\/p>\n
Once that work is complete, they will be removed and replaced with a different set of machines to bore under the Hudson River.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the rocks and the geotechnical grounds [are] different,\u201d Tom Prendergast, CEO of the Gateway Development Commission, said.<\/p>\n
The project comes as the existing tunnel used by New Jersey Transit and Amtrak carries about 200,000 people a day and needs repairs because of damage from Hurricane Sandy.<\/p>\n
Officials said a failure of the tunnel would affect the economies of New York, New Jersey and the country by limiting access for workers and visitors traveling to the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur region is the beating heart of America, generating 20% of the nation\u2019s GDP. And this 10-mile stretch of track is its main artery,\u201d New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said.<\/p>\n
Nearly half of the $16 billion project is funded by the federal government.<\/p>\n
Last fall, the Trump administration announced it was withholding money, leading to a weeklong work stoppage in February.<\/p>\n
The Gateway Development Commission, New York and New Jersey filed separate lawsuits against the U.S. Transportation Department, and both courts ordered the federal government to pay.<\/p>\n
Hochul said the project must continue on schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not surrendering to anyone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The project remains on schedule. While Hochul suggested it could be completed by 2034, the current completion date is 2035.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A ceremonial switch was flipped in New Jersey to start one of two tunnel boring machines that will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[109,25,1084,9,24,12,63,87,122,124,123,298,27,296,200],"class_list":["post-359345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-samantha-liebman","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}