As of May 9, 2023, Amtrak is the proposed project sponsor and would design and construct the underground concrete casing. A firm timeline for construction has not been established. The closed solicitation has been included below for reference. To protect the alignment for a future rail tunnel beneath the Hudson Yards development on the west side of Manhattan, Amtrak has constructed two sections of a concrete casing underground between 10th and 11th Avenues and 30th and 33rd Streets. Construction of the first 800-foot section (between 10th and 11th Avenues) began in August 2013 and was completed about a year later. The second section extended the project west another 105 feet under the 11th Avenue viaduct in Manhattan and was completed in 2016. The next step involves extending the casing on a diagonal alignment from 11th Avenue to 30th Street, in coordination with the Hudson Tunnel Project and private development of Hudson Yards. Early work has begun to relocate Long Island Rail Road utilities out of the path of the third section. The additional ROW would be preserved by constructing an extension to the concrete casing under the Eastern Rail Yard addressed in the March 2013 EA. The concrete casing extension (Extension) proposes extending the concrete casing under 11th Avenue to 30th Street. The Extension would be 605 feet long, between 50 and 65 feet wide and between 27 and 38 feet tall under the Western Rail Yard of the Hudson Yards. The Extension is proposed at this time because construction under the 11th Avenue bridge is dependent on the reconstruction schedule of the MOE building and its ancillary tracks; and the ROW under Western Rail Yard needs to be preserved prior to the construction of the Overbuild Project foundations. The underground concrete casing would preserve a total ROW approximately 1400 feet long for the possibility of future expansion of rail service between New Jersey and New York and supports Amtrak’s efforts to improve resiliency in response to future disasters in Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
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