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Yesterday, New Jersey Gov. Gov. Jon Corzine announced the state’s Transportation Trust Fund includes $500 million to begin constructing New Jersey Transit’s Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel (THE Tunnel), which will double rail capacity between New Jersey and New York during the next decade.

Within 60 days, NJ Transit officials expect to receive permission from the Federal Transit Administration to begin preliminary engineering for the project, which could begin construction in 2009 and conclude in 2016.

The project calls for building two single-track tunnels beneath the New Jersey Palisades and Hudson River to a new station beneath Manhattan’s 34th Street, which will connect to Penn Station. The tunnels will supplement two Amtrak-owned tunnels that currently accommodate all Northeast Corridor commuter-rail traffic between New Jersey and Manhattan. Built in the early 1900s by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the tunnels are designed to accommodate a few long-distance trains daily.

To be constructed south of the existing tunnels, THE Tunnel will feature a loop track around the Frank R. Lautenberg station at Secaucus Junction and handle trains from Bergen, Passaic, Rockland and Orange counties.