A joint venture of Lane Construction, Schiavone and Dragados has won a US$466 million contract to build the mile-long New Jersey section of the new Hudson River Tunnel, a twin rail tunnel that will carry trains leaving Secausus Junction rail station in New Jersey under the Hudson River to Penn Station in Manhattan.

This is the first tunnel boring contract awarded as part of the US$16 billion Hudson River Tunnel Project (HTP), which involves constructing a new Hudson River Tunnel and rehabilitating the 114-year-old North River Tunnels. These older tunnels, which opened in 1910, are a critical yet vulnerable point in the Northeast Corridor, the busiest rail corridor in the U.S., stretching from Washington, DC, to Boston. The North River Tunnels, damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, require constant maintenance, leading to delays along the entire corridor.

Over 450 trains pass through the tunnels daily. The Commission warns that closing one of the two single-track tubes would cut train services along the entire corridor by 75%. The HTP, set for completion in 2038, will replace the two vulnerable tubes with four reliable single-track ones. The New Jersey section of HTP, named the Palisades Tunnel, will span 5,100 feet under the Palisades to the Hudson River. The Lane JV, holding a 35% share, will deploy two tunnel boring machines starting this summer. The tunnels will be lined with precast concrete rings, each with an inside diameter of 25 feet 2 inches. The JV will construct six cross passages, each featuring a permanent cast-in-situ concrete liner and waterproofing membrane. The project also includes building a new 120-foot-deep Hoboken Shaft near the river, which will be used to extract the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) once digging is completed in 2027.