For years, the “new Hudson River tunnel” has felt like a ghost project New Yorkers only heard about in vague press conferences and optimistic PowerPoints.
But as of now, March 2026, the “ghost” has officially materialized into a massive, muddy reality.
Despite a heart-stopping funding hiccup last month that briefly threatened to derail the whole thing, crews are officially back on site, giant machines are being prepped, and the first real tunneling under the river is finally slated to begin later this year.
Here’s where the Hudson Tunnel Project actually stands right now — and why 2026 is the biggest year for NYC transit in a century.
Wait, what happened in February?
February was nearly the month the music stopped for the entire Gateway project.
In a move that caught everyone off guard, the federal government froze hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements, effectively pulling the plug on the project’s cash flow.
By February 6, the Gateway Development Commission (GDC) was forced to pause construction and temporarily lay off about 1,000 workers.
New York and New Jersey moved fast. Both states filed lawsuits, arguing the funding freeze violated existing agreements.
A federal court ultimately sided with the states, ordering the funds to be released.
By late February, more than $200 million had been released back to the project, and crews were able to return to work on both sides of the Hudson.
As of this week, workers are back on site clearing equipment, restarting construction zones, and preparing for the next phase of the project.
What exactly is the Hudson Tunnel Project?
Think of it as emergency surgery on the busiest rail throat in America.
The project will build a brand‑new two‑tube rail tunnel under the Hudson River between North Bergen, New Jersey and Manhattan, just south of the current 1910‑era North River tunnels.
Once the new tunnel opens, crews will take the existing, Sandy‑damaged tunnel out of service one tube at a time, fully gut and rehab it, and then bring all four tubes (two new, two old) back into service.
When it’s done, trains between Newark and Penn Station will have double the tunnel capacity and a lot more reliability — which is huge when you realize roughly 200,000 passenger trips a weekday currently depend on just those two aging tubes.
It’s the centerpiece of the broader Gateway Program and carries a price tag around $16 billion, with an unusually high ~73% covered by federal funding.
What’s actually happening right now?
Right now, the project looks less like a tunnel and more like a massive construction puzzle spread across both sides of the Hudson.
In New Jersey, crews are excavating the enormous launch area where the tunnel boring machines will eventually begin their underground journey toward Manhattan.
Over on the Manhattan side near Hudson Yards, workers are pouring the final sections of a giant underground concrete casing that will guide trains from the future tunnel into Penn Station.
Engineers are also working beneath the river itself, drilling and injecting grout into soft sections of the riverbed to stabilize the ground before tunneling begins.
Meanwhile, another major Gateway project just reached a milestone. Amtrak recently began shifting trains onto the new Portal North Bridge over the Hackensack River, replacing a century-old swing bridge that frequently caused delays for trains heading toward the Hudson.
All of this groundwork is setting the stage for the most dramatic phase of the project.
So… when do the giant tunnel boring machines start digging?
Short answer: not quite yet, but very soon.
Earlier projections suggested tunneling could begin as early as 2024 or 2025. But with construction staging and other work still underway, the timeline has shifted slightly.
Project officials now say the massive tunnel boring machines are expected to begin digging from the New Jersey side around mid-2026.
Once that happens, the machines will slowly chew their way beneath the Hudson River toward Manhattan, carving out one of the most important rail tunnels in the country.
The long timeline: when will riders feel it?
If everything holds close to the current plan, the big milestones look like this:
- Mid–late 2026:
- First TBM begins excavating from North Bergen toward Manhattan.
- By ~2027:
- Hudson River ground stabilization complete.
- New Jersey tunnel approach through the Palisades substantially advanced.
- By ~2029:
- Major tunneling finished; Manhattan tunnel connections (“Manhattan tunnel project”) largely in place.
- By ~2035:
- New two‑tube Hudson River tunnel opens to passenger service.
- By ~2038:
- Rehabilitation of the existing North River tunnel complete; four fully functional tubes available, effectively doubling trans‑Hudson rail capacity.