advertisement

---

Earlier this week, the New York City Council approved a land use plan for the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) Mass Transit Tunnel, clearing the way for the $8.7 billion project to start in Manhattan later this year.

The council voted in favor of tunnel work to be ongoing simultaneously on both sides of the Hudson River. In June, ARC tunnel partners New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) broke ground on the project in North Bergen, N.J. NJ Transit and PANYNJ — which has committed $3 billion for the project — expect to complete the tunnel by 2017.

The tunnel is designed to double commuter-rail capacity between New Jersey and midtown Manhattan by accommodating up to 48 trains per hour compared with the existing 100-year-old, two-track tunnel’s capacity for 23 trains per hour. Work in Manhattan will include an expansion of Penn Station under 34th Street and underground connections to the Sixth Avenue subway lines.