Hudson Riverbed will be stabilized for Gateway

Underwater phase launches for $16 billion rail tunnel project

By: Colleen Wilson
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... The Gateway Development Commission has authorized a $100 million contract to begin the first phase of ground stabilization work - the first "heavy construction" and underwater work - for the $16 billion Hudson River railroad tunnels project.
..... Cranford-based Marine Weeks, Incorporated was awarded the contract from among two shortlisted firms. When fully executed with the second phase of this work, which is likely to take place this fall, [2024] the contract will be worth $284 million.
..... "It involves building a 1,200-foot cofferdam that will strengthen the riverbed in the Manhattan side of the Hudson River," said Kris Koluri, CEO of the GDC, the bistate agency created to oversee the construction of a new two-track rail tunnel beneath the Hudson between North Jersey and Manhattan, and then repair the more than 110-year-old current two-track tunnels that was heavily damaged in 2012 by Superstorm Sandy.
..... The Gateway Project is intended to make rail service more reliable for hundreds of thousands of dally NJ Transit and Amtrak riders traveling between New Jersey and Manhattan.
..... "Major work for all the segments, both in New Jersey, New York and in the river will be underway in 2024," Kolluri said
..... The work includes injecting a mix of soil, concrete and water to stabilize the soft Hudson riverbed that will help ensure a tunnel boring machine can excavate the new tunnel while protecting the riverbed form disruption.
..... This is the third construction contract to receive approve in less than a year. It follows the concrete casing work taking place in Hudson Yards and the Tonnelle Avenue overpass construction in North Bergen.
..... "When we issue the (contracts for the ) Palisades and the Manhattan tunnels by sometime in 2024 you will see the Hudson tunnel project come into very sharp focus" Kolluri said. "Our commitment to the board and our commitment to our stakeholders is to make sure that our project enters a point of no return and that is where we are even today."

Gateway has already advanced beyond ARC, its predecessor

..... By many measures, the Gateway program has advanced beyond that of its predecessor rail tunnel project, ARC, which was canceled by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2010.
..... Once the full ground stabilization contract is executed, the Gateway program will have been in construction for about a year and have nearly $1 billion in projects underway in New York, New Jersey and in the Hudson River.
..... When ARC was canceled, construction had been underway for 13 months on a $13.6 million project at Tonnelle Avenue, the same location where the Gateway tunnel entrance is planned.
..... ARC also had a full funding grant agreement in place, but Kolluri said the Gateway Development Commission is planning to finalize this sprig [2024] with the Federal Transit Administration. he also hopes to have the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing loan agreement singed this summer. [2024]

Change is administrations could disrupt project

..... The bistate agency is working at a breakneck pace to further this project so it can withstand potential political headwinds as election cycles approach before the expected full completion of the tunnels projects in 2038.
..... "A change of any administration runs the risk of stalling the project, so no matter who our next president is we want to make sure that our region's most important infrastructure project is ironclad," said Zoe Baldwin, New Jersey director for the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit research and advocacy group that has pushed for the construction of new rial tunnels for decades.
..... Weeks Marine, which will do the Hudson riverbed stabilization work, has worked on water-related projects, including the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, Midtown Tunnel in Norfolk, Virginia and offshore wind projects in Rhode Island and Salem County, New Jersey.

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