Gateway Development Corp. Releases Animations of Completed Portal North Bridge and Hudson River Tunnel

By TBM News August 3, 2018

Gateway Program Development Corp. (GDC) on July 30 released two new animations depicting the finished Portal North Bridge and Hudson River Tunnels projects at completion. The two projects are the first in the Gateway Program and the most critical to replacing a 107-year-old one track in, one track out system that is increasingly failing 200,000 riders a day and causing delays that ripple throughout the rail system from Washington to Boston.

The first animation shows the full build out of the Portal North Bridge project, which spans nearly 2.5 miles from Kearny to Secaucus, and includes the replacement of the 107 year old swing bridge over the Hackensack River. The existing bridge gets stuck and causes substantial train delays when opening and closing to accommodate river traffic – required by Federal law.

The second animation depicts the route of the new Hudson River Tunnel from New Jersey under the Palisades and Hudson River to the west side of Manhattan. The new tunnel will be the first one built under the Hudson in more than 80 years, and the first new rail tunnel since completion of the existing tubes in 1910 by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Those tubes are in urgent need of rehabilitation and suffer frequent outages from age and water damage due to inundation from Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

“With complicated transportation projects, it’s important that we show and not just tell,” said GDC Chief of Public Outreach Stephen Sigmund. “These animations bring to life the two most urgent infrastructure projects in the country, the 2.5 mile long Portal North Bridge and the two tunnels under the Hudson River to Penn Station, that will unclog a bottleneck causing delays for 200,000 riders and day and threatening 10% of the nation’s GDP. Such critical parts of our transportation infrastructure deserve to be reliable, efficient and built for the 21st Century, and these animations demonstrate that that’s just what the new Portal North Bridge and Hudson River Tunnels are.”