Tunnel Boring Begins on $16B Hudson Tunnel Project

Tunnel boring has officially begun on the $16 billion Hudson Tunnel Project, the rail crossing that ranks among the most consequential infrastructure undertakings now underway in the United States.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill marked the start of tunneling at an event celebrating the milestone for the long-delayed, frequently contested project. Her remarks focused on the legal battles that have shadowed the effort.

"We've taken the Trump admin to court five times … we've won five times," Sherrill said.

The quote underscores the adversarial path the Hudson Tunnel Project has traveled. Five lawsuits. Five victories in court. That record, according to the governor, is what has carried the scheme from embattled proposal to active construction site with boring machines now in the ground.

The start of tunneling represents a decisive turn for a project that has spent years defined more by political friction than by physical progress. The $16 billion price tag makes it one of the largest infrastructure investments in the country, and the shift to boring operations signals that the work has moved past planning and procurement into the phase that will actually produce the new crossing.

For the engineers and construction teams involved, the beginning of boring is the moment the project becomes tangible. Machines are now advancing through the ground where the new tunnel alignment will take shape. Every meter bored from this point forward is permanent, physical progress — a contrast to the legal and legislative skirmishes that previously consumed the project's timeline.

Sherrill's decision to frame the milestone through the litigation record is telling. The five court fights against the Trump administration, and the five wins she cited, have become central to the project's recent history. The governor presented that record as proof of persistence: the project survived its legal and political challenges and reached the point where steel and concrete are now doing the talking.

The event marking the tunneling start served both as a construction milestone and a political one. Officials gathered to celebrate a project that many had tried to stop, delay or defund across multiple administrations. With boring underway, the calculus changes. Canceling or stalling a project with active tunneling operations is a materially different proposition than fighting over one that exists only on paper.

The $16 billion program now enters its most visible and least reversible stage. As the boring machines advance, the Hudson Tunnel Project moves from a story about courtroom victories — five suits filed, five won, in Sherrill's words — toward a story about completed infrastructure.