President Biden joins federal, state and local officials to break ground on Portal North Bridge

[marmar]

The Portal North Bridge, the Western Hemisphere’s busiest rail bridge and a notorious chokepoint on the Northeast Corridor, is one step closer to its next chapter that will include greater reliability and capacity with a ceremonial groundbreaking of the project to replace the bridge attended by federal, state and local officials, including President Joseph Biden.

The Portal North Bridge is a key project of the Gateway Program and calls for the replacement of a swing span that carries about 450 New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) and Amtrak trains daily over the Hackensack River. The bridge is the busiest rail span in the Western Hemisphere and when an issue or failure occurs, the impact on rail movements not only affects New Jersey, but has cascading effects throughout the Northeast Corridor.

President Biden noted the bridge was considered state of the art when it was built 110 years ago, but now carries many other less flattering descriptors including “a ‘chokepoint,’ a ‘bottleneck,’ and an ‘Achilles heel’ of the Northeast Corridor.”

“Aging infrastructure like this is more than an inconvenience or a nuisance; it’s an impediment — impediment to America’s global competitiveness,” said President Biden. “Today, we’re moving forward on a new bridge that will be higher over the water, so it won’t need to open and close. It’ll allow us to increase speed, safety and efficiency and capacity. It’s going to make life a lot better for New Jersey’s commuters. It’s also going to create nearly 8,000 construction jobs in this area alone — this area’s workers — 8,000 union jobs.” ........(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/infrastructure/article/21243952/president-biden-joins-federal-state-and-local-officials-to-break-ground-on-portal-north-bridge