NEW YORK - A new rail tunnel linking midtown Manhattan to New Jersey under the Hudson River moved a step closer to construction yesterday after New Jersey Transit approved a contract to start on the New York portion of the $8.7 billion project.
The 9-mile stretch of tracks and tunnel will double the current tube’s commuter rail capacity and bring trains to a Pennsylvania Station annex about 150 feet below West 34th Street.
New Jersey Transit’s board of directors voted, 6 to 0, to approve three contracts totaling as much as $612.2 million. Work is scheduled to begin early next year on an access shaft at 12th Avenue between 28th and 29th streets.
Two boring machines will then drill parallel tubes about a mile through Manhattan bedrock, New Jersey Transit said in a statement.
The tunnel, which officials say will ease delays for hundreds of thousands of commuters, will open in 2018, said Paul Wyckoff, a New Jersey Transit spokesman. The tube is the largest public transit project in the nation, according to the agency.
The contractors include Barnard Construction, based in Bozeman, Mont., and Judlau Contracting Inc. of College Point, N.Y.
