Construction on the critical $16 billion Gateway Tunnel project to improve railroad service on both sides of the Hudson River could be “derailed or permanently killed” unless President Trump quickly releases federal funds he froze for it in October, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and officials overseeing the effort warned on Tuesday.
During a Jan. 27 meeting of the Gateway Development Commission — the entity in charge of replacing the tunnels — the senator urged Trump to free up the $4.38 billion in funding the feds have already allocated for the undertaking by Feb. 6. The funds were awarded under the Biden administration.
“We are here today to say that President Trump can, and he must, restore Gateway ASAP — because the money, as the board will tell you, is going to run out all too soon,” said Schumer, who is also the Senate’s Democratic minority leader.
The commission has continued work on the project since the federal funding freeze by utilizing a line of credit, GDC CEO Tom Prendergast said during the meeting. However, he said that was only a temporary solution that will not last past next Friday.
“We have now drawn down nearly all of the available sources and credit and can no longer continue funding construction without access to the original project’s funds,” Prendergast said. “For that reason, we have notified our contractors that work will have to stop on Feb. 6 if additional funding does not become available.”
The Trump administration froze funds for the project in October, coinciding with the beginning of the last federal government shutdown. At the time, the federal Department of Transportation said the pause would last until it completed a review of whether the project’s contracts complied with the administration’s new rules on women- and minority-owned businesses.
The Gateway Project involves building two new train tunnels underneath the Hudson River to replace the two existing ones, which are deteriorating from 116 years of use and damage caused by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Officials have warned that those tunnels, especially the North River Tunnel, need to be replaced as quickly as possible to avoid losing an essential transportation artery.
The existing tunnels, owned and operated by Amtrak, carry tens of thousands of commuters between New York and New Jersey each weekday via Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. The tubes are also part of Amtrak’s broader Northeast Corridor, a line between Boston and Washington, D.C., that carries roughly 800,000 passenger trips each day.
Disaster looms without Gateway project: Schumer
Any prolonged pause in the Gateway project, Schumer contended, would carry dire consequences.
Those include losing tens of thousands of union jobs; placing further strain on the existing tunnels; potentially tanking property values; and devastating both the regional and national economies.
He laid the blame for the project’s likely pause squarely on Trump, arguing that the president can simply order U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to unfreeze the federal dollars.
“If Trump doesn’t pick up that phone and give Gateway the green light, jobs will be lost; the economic output, that will evaporate; the real estate values, that will tank; all of that will be on President Trump’s head,” Schumer said.
Alicia Glen, the GDC’s New York commissioner and co-chair, also argued that the decision is entirely in Trump’s hands.
“Let’s be clear that there is only an audience of one, one person who needs to hear our collective voices, and we all know who that is,” Glen said of Trump. “So we are telling you today on behalf of hundreds of workers, thousands of riders, millions of Americans who are counting on you, Donald Trump, must restore funding to this project.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai fired back, in a statement, that it is actually Schumer and the Democrats “standing in the way” of letting the money flow, rather than the president, by “refusing to negotiate with the Trump administration.”
“There is nothing stopping Democrats from prioritizing the interests of Americans over illegal aliens and getting this project back on track,” Desai added. His comments appeared to tie the project’s future to Senate Democrats’ opposition to a Trump-backed spending bill that funds agencies carrying out his ongoing immigration crackdown.
