Lily Flood 
If there’s one thing New Jersey-ians know about commuting in and out of Manhattan, it’s that the trip overseas often comes with delays and heaps of traffic. But if there’s one thing we also know to be true, it’s that all roads will always lead to Jersey. The Gateway Program, with the Hudson Tunnel Project, is the most urgent and largest infrastructure project in the country to date. The goal of the work is twofold: to make the tunnel between the most congested section of the Northeast corridor more reliable while also building a new tunnel that will create two new tracks under the Hudson River. Here’s what Hoboken and Jersey City residents can expect from The Gateway Program.
What Is It?
The Gateway Program is the largest infrastructure investment in the country to date. It is a multi-state rail infrastructure improvement project. Several state and federal agencies are involved with the project, which officially broke ground in 2023. The project is governed by the Gateway Development Commission (GDC), a bi-state public authority between New Jersey and New York.
Photo Credit: Gateway Development Commission
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A key element of the project is The Hudson Tunnel Project, which will see nine miles of new passenger rail track built between New York and New Jersey. This will include a new, two-tube tunnel under the Hudson River and rehabilitating the existing 115-year-old tunnel, which frequently sees delays.
The Local Impact
For the Hudson Tunnel Project alone, 95,000 jobs will be created, directly and indirectly, over the course of the construction period, per the GDC.
The end goal of the massive project is to provide long-term resiliency and reliability for the regional and national rail network for New Jersey Transit and Amtrak riders.
“The Hudson Tunnel Project will transform our region for generations to come,” U.S. Rep Rob Menendez (D-8) said in a statement.
According to GDC Chief of Public Outreach Steve Sigmund, the massive project is 10 miniature projects combined into one.
In order for the GDC to successfully execute the Gateway Project, the organization needed to collect $16.3 billion in federal funding.
Sigmund said that one of the reasons the project took so long to get going was that the GDC had to demonstrate to the federal government the need for the entire scope of the project.
“The century-old tunnel is the single point of failure for the entire Northeast corridor,” the GDC said, and with the small area accounting for 20% of the entire nation’s economy, an improvement is dire.
Currently, five of the ten projects are under construction: the Tonnelle Avenue Bridge and Utility Relocation in New Jersey; the Hudson Yards Concrete Casing in New York, expected to be completed in 2026; the Hudson River Ground Stabilization, which began construction in summer 2024; the Palisades Tunnel Project, which began in 2024 with tunnel boring starting in 2026; and the Manhattan Tunnel Project, which began work in April 2025.
Looking Ahead
Originally expected to conclude in the fall, work on the Tonnelle Avenue Bridge and Utility Relocation in New Jersey has been underway for quite some time. This piece of the puzzle will provide access to the entry point for tunnel boring machines that will dig the New Jersey portion of the new Hudson River Tunnel and connect the two portions of the Tonnelle Avenue Staging Site, which is the primary staging site for the project.
According to an update given in September 2025, the Tonnelle Avenue Project is nearly complete. “HYCC-3 is more than halfway finished, and the HRGS team has completed the first season of work within the cofferdam and is shifting the dam to enable work on a new section of the riverbed,” the Gateway Development Commission shared with HG.
Construction of the Hudson River Ground Stabilization project started in the summer of 2024, and once completed, it will stabilize Manhattan’s side of the riverbed to allow the tunnel boring machines to excavate while protecting the riverbed ecosystem.
According to Sigmund, the Hudson River Ground Stabilization Project is one of the key components to ensure the tunnel stays upright. Currently, deep soil mixing is underway within the cofferdam, and in-water work is being scheduled around sturgeon spawning windows.
“The natural consistency of the bottom of the river is sort of like chocolate pudding, and if you didn’t do anything there, then [the bottom of the river] would get churned up and collapse onto the tunnel, and you wouldn’t have a stable base for the tunnel to get through to get to Manhattan,” Sigmund said.
Expected to be completed by 2027, the Palisades Tunnel Project focuses on constructing the first mile of the twin tunnels on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River and is the first tunnel boring aspect of the project, consisting of boring the two tubes for the new tunnel.
The Gateway Development Commission announced on August 20th, 2025, that the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) for this project are almost finished. According to the agency’s news release, procurement, manufacturing, and factory assembly of the first TBM is about 85% complete, while the second is at 73%. Manufacturing of the first machine is expected to wrap up in the coming weeks, with both scheduled for completion by November. Once finished, the TBMs will be shipped to the Garden State for on-site reassembly, with tunneling set to begin in 2026.
Once the massive project is completed, the hope is that the infrastructure will last over 100 years.
“The most urgent infrastructure project in the nation” is also the largest after the $3.8 billion Federal-State Partnership Grant agreement with the Federal Railroad Administration. This approval completed the $12 billion federal contribution for the Hudson Tunnel Project, which will soon see the completion of the first two tunnel boring machines, as of September 2025. “Both machines will leave the factory this year and will arrive in New Jersey for assembly on site in early 2026,” GDC said.
The project is also expected to generate $19.6 billion in economic activity over its construction period.
All roads always lead to Jersey, and now they may not even have delays.
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