$88M Price Tag to Pull 500 Pier Pilings from Hudson River Mud

It won’t be cheap to rip out 500 sunken stumps left over from 19th century piers that are standing in the way of tunnel boring machines involved in the Hudson Tunnel Project.

The Gateway Development Commission (GDC) Board of Commissioners unanimously approved an $88 million change order on July 8 to remove roughly 500 submerged wooden piles from the Hudson Tunnel Project’s path. The routine engineering vote, however, wasn’t without pushback.

The wooden piles in question are leftover from Pier 68, which was built in the late 1800s as a massive for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The above water structure pier was later demolished following a spectacular fire in 1964 but about 500 of the original wooden pilings remained submerged in the river mud. Now the worry is the submerged logs could foul the boring machines set to start tunneling into the bedrock as part of the larger the Hudson Tunnel Project. The change order will be made to the Hudson River Ground Stabilization (HRGS Project) (HRGS).

That is one of several construction contracts within the larger Hudson Tunnel Project, itself the cornerstone of the $16 billion Gateway Program—a sweeping effort to modernize rail infrastructure between Newark, NJ, and New York’s Penn Station. The bi-state Gateway Development Commission oversees the program and its major construction projects.

The HRGS Project entails 120,000 square feet of soil stabilization and strengthening efforts, according to GDC Chief Program Delivery Officer James Starace, who presented project updates and the proposed change order with GDC CEO Thomas Prendergast..

The July 8 change order means that the project’s scope is going to add a year to the original completion date.

In the presentation, Starace stated that the new work with the included approved change order would begin late this year and that completion now isn’t expected until 2028 an extension of the original anticipated completion date of April 2027. The full presentation, including details on the pile removal, can be found here.

“Pier 68’s piles were identified as a factor that could negatively impact the tunnel boring,” Starace said. “It was identified at the time of the program’s preliminary design...In addition, feedback from the construction industry during the Hudson River Tunnel procurement process affirmed the need to remove these piles.”

During the July 8 meeting, Secretary Maria Anderson noted that a form had been posted to the Gateway Program website to solicit public comments on the change order, and that notice of the meeting had been posted but how long the form was available prior to the meeting is unclear.

Meeting minutes state that the Commission had received two written comments by 5 p.m. the day before, July 7. Of the two comments, one offered positive feedback, and the other one less so. The positive comment came from Joshua Berman, campaigns director at the Regional Plan Association.

“Taking preventive action now is far preferable to encountering costly delays during tunnel boring,” Berman wrote.

On the other hand, self-defined “individual taxpayer and rail advocate” Joseph Clift—who also attended the July 8 meeting to share his thoughts aloud—wrote with skepticism.

“I ask both New York and New Jersey GDC commissioners to demand specific and detailed explanations for the extremely large 31% increase in this contract PRIOR to voting on the resolution to approve this increase,” Clift wrote, asking that the commissioners delay the vote if that information wasn’t made available beforehand.

During the July 8 meeting, he was joined by five other individuals sharing their input on the proposed change order, which would be voted on at the meeting’s end. Clift, however, was the only one to focus specifically on the change order, and also the only commenter not currently associated with a regional organization. He reiterated his concerns about transparency, and expressed further concerns that the Hudson Tunnel Project, as currently designed, would fail to increase trans-Hudson rail capacity upon completion.

“You’re supposed to provide this information in advance to the public and to the board,” Clift said during his comment, referring to the details about the change order shared during the meeting. “Doing it in a presentation on the day, an incomplete presentation, by the way, in terms of costs, is simply incorrect.”

Aside from Clift, public comments were largely supportive of the commission’s work. Carlo Casa of the New York Building Congress described the GDC’s progress thus far as “incredible,” noting the necessity of the project.

“The existing 116-year-old North River North River tunnel is not a long-term solution for the Northeast Corridor,” Casa said. “Until a new tunnel is built, the region remains exposed to the risk of a closure that would disrupt travel up and down the Northeast Corridor and cost the national economy billions.”

Supportive GDC executives, commissioners, and even commenters also highlighted how the July 8 meeting took place exactly two years after the GDC entered a Full Funding Grant Agreement with the Federal Transit Administration.

Despite Clift’s concerns, the Board’s unanimous vote in favor of the change order indicated that the GDC’s explanation for the rise in costs would suffice. The commissioners present voted unanimously in favor of the change order, with Board Commissioner Victor Herlinsky even affirming support for the proposal and GDC “being so proactive.”

“I think the last thing we would have wanted to see is us experiment or take a chance of going through these pilings and ultimately having something break down or just not having planned for this contingency and then getting stuck behind schedule,” Herlinsky said.