WEEHAWKEN, N.J. – Seven stories below street level on the edge of the Hudson River, a race against time is being waged, foot by painstaking foot.
At stake is the health of a crucial component of the New York region’s aging and overburdened mass transit ecosystem: the North River rail tunnel, a 110-year-old tube that carries multitudes of commuters to and from Manhattan, including Amtrak trains on the busy corridor between Boston and Washington.
With a new tunnel potentially a decade away due to funding questions, Amtrak has embarked on an aggressive and expensive program to fix the most pressing problems in the leaking, crumbing tunnel before they become intractable and force an extended shutdown.