The Portal North Bridge Replacement project has received the 2026 Engineering Project of the Year Award from the American Society of Highway Engineers (ASHE) New Jersey Section. The award was presented during ASHE New Jersey’s annual Engineering Awards program at Forsgate Country Club in April and recognizes large‑scale transportation projects delivered across New Jersey that demonstrate engineering excellence and complexity.
STV, working in joint venture with AECOM, is providing comprehensive construction management and inspection services on behalf of NJ TRANSIT. Located in northeastern New Jersey, Portal North Bridge is a critical rail infrastructure project within the Gateway Program. The project replaces the original Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River, a movable swing bridge that has been in service for more than a century and has long constrained operations along the Northeast Corridor. The new structure is a high‑level, fixed‑span bridge designed to eliminate a long-standing operational bottleneck by supporting uninterrupted rail and marine traffic while maintaining continuous service during construction.
Delivery of the project has required extensive coordination among multiple agencies and stakeholders, live‑rail sequencing and phased construction activities in a dense operational environment. Construction has progressed through a series of major milestones, including the successful placement of the first track on the new bridge into revenue service earlier this year.
The bridge replacement addresses longstanding operational challenges associated with the original crossing by increasing the bridge’s height to approximately 50 feet – more than doubling the previous vertical clearance – while accommodating active rail operations throughout all phases of construction. This approach has allowed service to continue along the nation’s busiest passenger rail corridors as work advances.
The ASHE New Jersey recognition comes amid a historic level of investment along the Northeast Corridor over the past year, during which progress on the Portal North Bridge has represented a key element of broader system modernization efforts. In its recently released State of the Corridor report, the Northeast Corridor Commission reported that nearly $5 billion was invested in corridor infrastructure in 2025 – the highest level of capital investment in the corridor’s history. The report also highlights several other transformative projects currently underway across the corridor, including the Sawtooth Bridges Replacement, East River Tunnel Rehabilitation, the Connecticut River Bridge replacement and Amtrak Ivy City Yard Expansion.
Construction on Portal North Bridge is ongoing. A second revenue service track is planned to be placed into service later in 2026 as the remaining phases advance.
