The Trump administration on Wednesday transferred the balance of federal funds owed to the Gateway rail tunnel initiative, additional money beyond the original amount, paving the way for work on the project to resume early next week.
Once completed, the project will increase the number of rail tunnels connecting New York City and New Jersey, as well as repair the century-old tunnel, which was heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and is used by 200,000 passengers and 425 trains daily.
New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, announced on social media that the administration had delivered the final installment tied to the $16bn Cross-Hudson project to connect the cities.
“Following our earlier court victory and my conversation with the President, the Trump Administration has released the remaining $127 million in overdue Gateway Tunnel funds,” Hochul wrote. “Construction resumes next week. A major win for workers and commuters.”
The move follows a federal judge’s ruling last week requiring Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to restore the suspended funding. The Trump administration is expected to challenge that ruling.
The president has suspended $205m in reimbursements for the project since early October. Trump has reportedly demanded that Washington Dulles International Airport and New York’s Penn Station be renamed after him in exchange for withholding funding amid sharp criticism from Democrats. The effort ran out of financing on February 6, forcing construction to stop.
Securing the funding would represent a significant victory for Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders from New York and New Jersey. They have been pressuring the administration for months since the Department of Transportation indefinitely withheld money for the nation’s largest infrastructure project.
“This is a huge win for New York, New Jersey, hundreds of thousands of commuters, thousands of union workers and the entire region’s economy,” Schumer said in a statement on X. He said an additional $127m was given to the project from the federal government, bringing the total to $235m. “Workers will be back to work soon,” he said.
Last year, Trump declared the Gateway project “finished.” In a post on his Truth social platform on Monday, he doubled down on his opposition to the project, though he did not specify whether federal funding would be frozen.
“I oppose the future boondoggle of the so-called ‘Gateway’ in New York/New Jersey because it will cost many billions of dollars more than estimated or expected,” Trump wrote. “Gateway itself could be an economic disaster for the region if hard work is not done now and proper planning is done to avoid insurmountable costs in the future.”
