Portal North Bridge

The Portal North Bridge is the fix for one of the worst chokepoints on the entire Northeast Corridor. The century-old swing bridge it replaces jammed shut often enough to snarl Amtrak and NJ Transit trains between Newark and New York. The new fixed span sits high enough that boats pass underneath without the bridge ever opening.

Project Scope
A Skanska-Traylor joint venture is building the $1.56 billion bridge over the Hackensack River in the New Jersey Meadowlands. The design is a fixed, two-track high-level bridge, 50 feet above the water, so there’s no movable machinery to fail. The first track opened in March 2026, ahead of schedule. Crews plan to shift the second track onto the new bridge in fall 2026, then dismantle the old swing bridge the following year. It’s the single largest construction award in NJ Transit’s history and a keystone of the broader Gateway Program.

Why It Matters
About 200,000 passenger trips a day run over this stretch. Every time the old bridge stuck open, delays rippled up and down the corridor from Washington to Boston. Killing the movable span removes a failure point that railroaders have cursed for decades. It’s also the first major Gateway element to reach service, which matters for a program that spent years stalled over funding.

Project Team & Details