Amtrak Portal Bridge gets design funds
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-ChiefAmtrak’s Portal Bridge, considered one of the Northeast Corridor’s weakest infrastructure links, has received $38.5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for design work, in preparation for the bridge’s eventual replacement.
The swing bridge, spanning the Hackensack River in the New Jersey Meadowlands between Newark and New York, suffers from repeated mishaps and misalignment problems when used to facilitate marine traffic, causing extensive delays to Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains.
Amtrak and NJT continue to pursue a $720 million replacement bridge, and the project has survived despite being tenuously linked to NJ Transit’s proposed trans-Hudson River tunnel additions.
Some groups opposing the NJT tunnel plan (at times dubbed “Access to the Region’s Core”) have stressed that such opposition did not include Portal, and in fact noted that a Portal Bridge upgrade or replacement was critical to any improved cross-Hudson rail plans, including the current “Gateway Tunnel” plan Amtrak now has advanced, backed by New Jersey’s two U.S. Senators.
