$1.3B Gateway Hudson Tunnel Boring Contract Awarded to Traylor-Walsh-Skanska JV
The joint venture will build two new tunnel tubes, each about 7,250 feet long, under the Hudson River.
machineryasia 
A joint venture of Traylor Bros Inc., Walsh Group and Skanksa has won a $1.3 billion contract to bore new tunnel tubes under the Hudson River for a Gateway passenger rail project.
The contract, titled “Package 1C: The Hudson River Tunnel Section,” was awarded by the Gateway Development Commission, a public authority established by New York and New Jersey to oversee the project.
The contractors will build two tunnel tubes, each about 7,250 feet long, to connect the Hudson County Access Shaft in Weehawken, New Jersey, to the 12th Avenue Access Shaft on the West Side of Manhattan. Two new tunnel boring machines will tackle the mixed soil conditions created by the Hudson River Ground Stabilization project.
The joint venture will also:
- Install the tunnels’ liners and floors.
- Construct nine cross passages between the two new tunnels.
- Stabilize the ground across a section of the Hudson Bergen Light Rail tracks.
- Construct a permanent underground support system for strengthening part of the Willow Avenue Bridge between Weehawken and Hoboken.
Work on the tunnels is expected to begin in the coming months.
With this new contract, six of the 10 packages that make up the full $16 billion Hudson Tunnel Project have been awarded or completed. That includes the other two tunnel packages, Package 1A: The Palisades Tunnel and Package 1B: The Manhattan Tunnel. Once completed, the Hudson Tunnel Project will have created nine miles of new passenger rail track between New York and New Jersey and rehabilitated the passenger rail North River Tunnel.
The Hudson Tunnel Project fails under the umbrella of the Gateway Program, a set of rail investments meant to upgrade and improve commuter and intercity services for a nearly 460-mile rail line connecting major cities in the Northeast.
The Northeast Corridor is the most heavily used passenger rail line in the U.S., at 800,000 passenger trips a day. Most of its mainline is owned by Amtrak.
