Elected officers, hardhats and transit advocates from either side of the Hudson River pleaded with President Donald Trump Tuesday to maintain the nation’s largest public-works challenge from derailing as quickly as subsequent week.
Development on the $16 billion Gateway rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey is ready to grind to a halt by Feb. 6 until the Trump administration restores federal funding to a mammoth operation that the president “terminated” throughout the federal government shutdown final October.
“This makes absolutely no sense, yet here we are,” Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer mentioned Tuesday at a Decrease Manhattan assembly of the Gateway Improvement Fee. “There is only one person who terminated Gateway and there is only one person who can get it back on track and that is President Trump, make no mistake about it.”
Even after federal funding was paused in October, building has continued at 5 websites in Manhattan, New Jersey and within the Hudson with a line of credit score that Gateway chief Thomas Prendergast described as a “short-term solution.” However the line of credit score that has propped up that work is now set to run out inside days.
“I want to be very direct about what we’re facing here: this transportation crisis is a five-alarm fire, nothing short of that,” mentioned New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer. “In 10 days, on February 6, the money runs out and shovels go down on the Gateway Project, the most consequential infrastructure project right now in the United States of America.”
Federal transportation officers mentioned in October that the pause would maintain till the completion of a assessment that determines whether or not the challenge’s contracts are consistent with the administration’s guidelines on women- and minority-owned companies. On the time, the White Home’s price range director claimed spending on the challenge was getting used for “unconstitutional” variety efforts.
With 70% of the $16 billion challenge funded by federal grants, members of the Gateway Improvement Fee — the general public authority created in 2019 to hold out a sequence of passenger-rail enhancements between New York and New Jersey — conceded that the challenge could possibly be on the brink.
On the coronary heart of these enhancements is the brand new tunnel, which might change the 116-year-old North River Tunnel that suffered intensive harm throughout Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The creaky rail tunnel recurrently topics 200,000 each day vacationers on New Jersey Transit and Amtrak to commuting complications and delays. It’s the key artery linking the Backyard State to New York Metropolis and an important hyperlink alongside the Northeast Hall, the busiest rail stretch within the nation that spans between Boston and Washington D.C.
The brand new rail tunnel is meant to be carved out by two tunnel-boring machines which might be so long as a soccer discipline and which shall be constructed on website. One machine is prepared for meeting in New Jersey whereas the opposite is ready to be shipped subsequent month, whilst Gateway may face an identical destiny as a earlier proposed rail tunnel within the river that was scrapped by then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2010.
Two tunnel boring machines the size of soccer fields shall be used to constructing a brand new passenger rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River. Credit score: Through Gateway Improvement Commissi
“Pausing construction even temporarily will have serious negative consequences,” Prendergast mentioned. “First and foremost, nearly 1,000 workers who are employed working on this project will lose their jobs working on Gateway.”
“A longer construction pause could put all 96,000 jobs that would be required to complete this entire program at risk,” he added.
Alicia Glen, a former deputy mayor who now co-chairs the Gateway Improvement Fee, mentioned members should cope with “the harsh reality that President Trump himself made the decision to cut off federal funding” whereas commuters take care of frequent delays within the present tunnels.
“All of you who’ve been in these tunnels know this is not just an idle threat, this is not a drill — this is showtime,” Glen mentioned. “If we don’t have a tunnel in service, then the fallout for our economy and for our nation will, in fact, be catastrophic.”
A White Home spokesperson threw the potential shutdown of the challenge again at Trump’s political rivals.
“It’s Chuck Schumer and Democrats who are standing in the way of a deal for the Gateway Tunnel Project by refusing to negotiate with the Trump administration,” spokesperson Kush Desai mentioned in a press release. “There is nothing stopping Democrats from prioritizing the interests of Americans over illegal aliens and getting this project back on track.”
Representatives from the constructing trades, a number of unions and even some building employees personally appealed to Trump to maintain the challenge in movement.
Addressing Trump straight, ironworker John Mooney famous how he’s from Queens — “like where you came from,” he mentioned — whereas his union job permits him to personal a house there whereas elevating two teenage daughters and training youth softball and volleyball.
“President Donald Trump, you said you want to make America great,” mentioned Mooney, a member of Ironworkers Native 580. “Union workers go home and they can afford to make their communities better, they can afford to make their communities great.”
There are 5 websites in New York, New Jersey and within the Hudson River the place Gateway tunnel work has began, Feb. 14, 2025. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Robert Sirois of Teamsters Union Native 282, mentioned he wished to “make it personal” for Trump whereas saying he stays “optimistic” that the challenge may be put again on monitor for laborers who would construct Gateway.
“Leave the political stuff aside, look at the hardworking people that this project will affect,” he mentioned. “Not only the commuters, but the people who will benefit from this project all around: thousands and thousands of men and women going to work every single day.”
Prendergast, a veteran transportation government who beforehand led the MTA, New York Metropolis Transit and the Lengthy Island Rail Highway, mentioned he stays optimistic about Gateway’s future.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way and I’m confident we’ll come out on the other side, we’ll have the money and we’ll complete this program,” he mentioned in response to a query from THE CITY.
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