Hoboken Included In Multi-Million Sandy Recovery Grant

Hoboken will be getting federal funding to make weather-related improvements to its transportation infrastructure as part of a recent Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant for Sandy recovery assistance.

Officials at the FTA announced that the agency has awarded NJ Transit $71,419,023 in Sandy recovery funds to “support important repair and resiliency projects.”

“With 56 percent of our residents taking public transportation to work every day, Hoboken is the most transit-dependent city in the country,” said Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer. “The three months it took to fully restore our transportation network after Sandy had a severe impact on our local economy, but these critical resiliency investments will better protect our region in the future.”

According to a release, the funds will be used to support important recovery and resilience projects currently underway, including the elevation of key substations in Hoboken, Kearny, and Bay Head to reduce the impact of future storms and flooding.

“These substations provide electric power for the trains and other critical facilities, including Hoboken terminal,” a release stated.

In addition, the grant allocates funding for the Hoboken Long Slip Flood Projection.

According to NJ Transit:

“During Sandy, Long Slip - a 2,000 foot, east-west penetration of the Hudson River into Hoboken Rail Yard - acted as a conduit for surge waters and contributed to the inundation of both Hoboken Terminal and its adjacent rail yard. The subsequent damage caused a suspension of commuter rail, bus and light rail service as well as incapacitating the historic terminal.

“The project will fill the Long Slip to an elevation above the Federal Emergency Management Agency base flood elevation. The project also includes construction on the filled area of six new tracks serving three high-level, ADA-accessible boarding platforms.

“The elevated position of these tracks and platforms will permit the rapid recovery of commuter rail services to and from Hoboken Yard and its associated Hudson Bergen Light Rail (HBLR), Port Authority Trans- Hudson (PATH), and ferry services, even while the main yard infrastructure and equipment is taken out of service for an impending storm, or being restored following a storm event, allowing NJ TRANSIT to operate longer and recover more quickly from storm events.”

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