Work on the waylaid Hudson River Tunnel is expected to resume Tuesday, the Daily News has learned.
Multiple sources familiar with the project confirmed that work is expected to begin again by day’s end on the project that has laid fallow for weeks amid funding interference from the Trump administration.
A spokesperson for the Gateway Development Commission, the bi-state body in charge of the tunnel’s construction, declined to confirm but did not deny The News’ reporting.
“Given the blizzard, we’re working with our contractors to resume construction as soon as possible and will have more to share on this soon,” Molly Beckhardt told The News.
AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey
The Gateway Tunnel is pictured under construction in Manhattan on Thursday, Oct. 2, in New York City. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
But a source familiar with the construction work said that project managers had already been back at work Monday, despite the blizzard, in order to prep for work at construction sites to begin anew on Tuesday.
The resumption comes less than a week after the Trump administration finally released more than $200 million in congressionally-approved funding it had held up since October, forcing the project to deplete a line of contingency credit before halting work earlier this month.
Some 1,000 construction workers were laid off the job as the GDC mothballed the project. It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether all of those workers had been rehired.
The federal government, under the Biden administration, agreed to fund more than 70% of the $16 billion tunnel, a crucial component of the larger Gateway Project, which is meant to double the number of rail lines across the New Jersey Meadowlands connecting the Garden State to Gotham’s Penn Station.
The site off 29th St. in Manhattan is slated to become a ventilation shaft for the Hudson River Tunnel. (Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Daily News)
But the project became a punching bag for the feds in the early hours of last year’s government shutdown, when the Trump admin announced it was cutting funding to the Hudson River Tunnel and the MTA’s Second Avenue Subway project, allegedly over a last-minute change in contracting rules.
Since then, Trump has personally declared the project dead, citing its support by Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as the reason. In press statements, a White House flack said the funding freeze was in response to Democratic lack of support for Trump’s unpopular immigration enforcement.
And, as reported by The News and others, Trump reportedly agreed to restore the funding if Penn Station and Dulles International Airport were named after him — reports the president called “JUST MORE FAKE NEWS” in a post on his personal social media site.