NEW YORK — The much-delayed Hudson Tunnel project to build a new connection between New Jersey and New York’s Penn Station has received an additional $3.8 billion in federal funding.
The additional funding brings the federal commitment to the $16.1 billion tunnel project to more than $11 billion, Bloomberg reports. It was announced Friday by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at a event in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards area featuring Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and other officials. That event was to mark the start of construction on the third of a eries of underground concrete casings providing a connection between the tunnel and Penn Station.
“This is a day that I know that this city, this region, this country has been looking for and waiting for for a very long time,” Buttigieg said, while Hochul said “years of inaction, excuses, delays and the infighting are finally over. We’re now heralding in a new era of working not against each other but working together to accomplish great things.”
The New York Times reports work will also start this month in New Jersey on a highway realignment project necessary to allow for the tunneling to begin. Tunneling is expected to begin in 2025, with the tunnel opening 10 years later; after that will come work to refurbish the existing tunnels under the Hudson, which suffered significant damage in flooding from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Two sections of the casing were completed earlier. Amtrak explained in a press release that the third will run from 11th Avenue to 30th Street, where it will connect with the Hudson Tunnel. Renderings for that portion of the project, expected to be completed in summer 2026, were unveiled Friday.
