Overview
- Officials ceremonially launched and powered up the first tunnel boring machine in North Bergen on Monday, with final testing under way before the machine begins cutting through the Palisades in the coming days.
- The custom TBM has a roughly 28‑foot cutterhead, a 500‑foot trailing gantry, weighs about 1,700 tons, and will excavate through hard basalt at roughly 30 feet per day for an initial roughly one‑mile Palisades drive.
- After the Palisades run the two machines will be removed at the Hudson County access shaft and replaced by different TBMs built for softer river sediments to bore beneath the Hudson to Manhattan.
- Federal funding was restored after months of legal fights that followed a funding freeze by President Donald Trump; states and Gateway officials say reimbursements have resumed and they will guard against future funding threats.
- Officials expect the machines to reach the Hudson County access shaft in about a year and still project passenger service in the mid‑2030s while citing about 100,000 construction jobs and roughly $20 billion in economic activity during the build.