An old Kearny recycling plant is being demolished to make way for the new $2.7 billion Portal North Bridge, an expensive plan to build a two-track replacement.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
NJ Transit indicated that today was the first day of demolition at Metal Green Recycling, located at 993 Belleville Turnpike.
Their board of directors approved the move in April 2020, with the agency willing to cover the relocation costs of the business, The Record reported.
in January 2021, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced the signing of a Full Funding Grant Agreement which secured $766.5 million in Federal Transit Administration funding.
In October of the same year, President Joe Biden (D) indicated that he would be advancing the project as he touted his $2 trillion infrastructure bills in a rare New Jersey appearance.
Then, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and New Jersey federal representatives for a ground breaking, the fourth of it’s kind, almost exactly one year ago at the West Hudson site.
Last year, the project received $339,519,539 as an allocation in Biden’s budget. The endeavor is a subsidiary of the Gateway Project that aims to create a new train tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting New York and New Jersey.
That project currently has a $16 to $17 billion price tag and has received $317 million in grant funding from the federal government this year: $292 million from announce in January and then another $25 million highlighted in June.
The existing Portal Bridge was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and entered revenue service in November 1910.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bridge carried more than 450 daily Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT trains and 200,000 daily passengers over the Hackensack River, according to NJ Transit.
That’s great – unfortunately Kearny residents have no train service and minimal bus service to NYC. We don’t need a Greenway but do need public transit .