Construction on the Gateway Tunnel rail project will likely resume on Wednesday after nearly a month-long pause, the Gateway Development Commission (GDC) announced on Tuesday.
GDC spokesperson Molly Beckhardt told amNewYork that workers on the project were already back at construction sites on Tuesday afternoon to clear away snow left from the blizzard that buried the city and surrounding areas over the weekend.
Beckhardt said construction on the $16 billion undertaking, which will replace a two-tube tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey below the Hudson River, was scheduled to restart on Wednesday. However, that depends on how quickly crews can remove the snow.
One thousand laborers who were laid off the job when construction halted on Feb. 6 will head back to work this week, according to GDC — the entity leading the project. The commission is able to resume construction after President Trump’s administration was forced by a court order earlier this month to send it $235 million in reimbursements that the feds had been holding back since October.
“Hundreds of workers will return to GDC’s construction sites in New York and New Jersey,” said Alicia Glen, the GDC’s New York commissioner and co-chair, in a statement. “This is great news for these workers, the hundreds of thousands of riders who take the train to New York City every day, and the entire region.”
The feds were ordered to unfreeze the funds by U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, who granted New York and New Jersey Attorneys General Letitia James’ and Jennifer Davenport’s request for a Temporary restraining order. The attorneys general presented a similar argument to many of the project’s proponents: that not completing it would mean continuing to use a decaying 116-year-old tunnel, endangering hundreds of thousands of commuters and negatively impacting the economy.
GDC said the project work that will commence in the weeks ahead includes preparing the “launch box” for the first of two tunnel boring machines that will excavate the new tubes, preparing to assemble that machine at the work site in North Bergen, NJ, and getting ready for delivery of the second tunnel boring machine.
However, Glen said the commission still needs to be diligent in pursuing the remaining funding, roughly $15 billion, that the feds owe it — including $11 billion in grants and $4 billion in loans.
“We cannot take our eyes off the ball,” she said. “We need every federal dollar accounted for in our grant and loan agreements to build this tunnel.”
Two major procurements for the project will remain on hold until GDC gains full access to federal funds, according to the commission.
Furthermore, the feds are still defending their funding freeze in two court cases: the one brought by James and Davenport and another filed by the GDC.
The Trump administration froze funds for the project near the start of the last government shutdown in October. It said it was pausing funding for the project pending a review of GDC’s compliance with recently changed standards around contracting with minority- and women-owned businesses.
