{"id":115587,"date":"2026-01-28T21:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/115587\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T21:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:41:12","slug":"trumps-cuts-may-halt-work-on-16b-hudson-river-train-tunnel-project-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/115587\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s cuts may halt work on $16B Hudson River train tunnel project, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Construction on the first new set of Hudson River train tunnels in more than a century will halt next week if the Trump administration doesn\u2019t resume funding mandated by Congress, the project’s leaders said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The project, known as the Gateway tunnel, is near the end of its line of credit to keep the work going, officials said. The situation prompted labor unions and Democratic congressmembers to join a growing chorus of construction leaders who are pleading with the president to get the funding flowing again. Project executives warned they\u2019d have to stop construction Feb. 6 if the logjam isn\u2019t resolved.<\/p>\n

In October, President Donald Trump ordered federal funding for the $16 billion project paused<\/a> while his administration reviewed whether Gateway officials complied with new rules surrounding contracts for women- and minority-owned businesses. The move came during last fall\u2019s federal government shutdown, which Trump blamed on Democrats and Chuck Schumer, the senate minority leader from New York.<\/p>\n

The project is funded with 70% federal grants, and the remaining 30% is split between New York and New Jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis makes absolutely no sense yet here we are. There is only one person who terminated Gateway, and there is only one person who could get it back on track, and that is President Trump,\u201d Schumer said Tuesday during a meeting of the Gateway Development Commission, which oversees the project. \u201cIt is insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House officials now blame their decision to withhold funding on Democrats\u2019 immigration policies, rather than issues with Gateway\u2019s contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d White House spokesperson Kush Desai wrote in a statement. \u201cThere is nothing stopping Democrats from prioritizing the interests of Americans over illegal aliens and getting this project back on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desai\u2019s comments came a day after Schumer said he would try to block a funding bill for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Schumer announced the move two days after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. This comes as the federal government is heading toward a partial shutdown Friday if Congress can\u2019t make a deal.<\/p>\n

Gateway CEO Tom Prendergast warned it would be hard to restart the project if it shuts down next week, saying 1,000 workers would be immediately terminated.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIf you suspend a job and have to close it down and secure it to start it up, you not only lose time, but you are spending money on things you didn’t anticipate to spend money on,\u201d Prendergast said.<\/p>\n

The tunnel project is well underway, with tunneling expected under the riverbed soon. A custom-built tunnel-boring<\/a> machine is onsite in New Jersey and ready to be assembled. A second machine is expected to be shipped in February.<\/p>\n

Several labor leaders appeared at the Gateway board meeting, imploring Trump to save their jobs.<\/p>\n

Richard Sirois, a Local 282 Teamsters member who helps run deliveries at the Gateway sites, said he voted for Trump twice, and was disappointed by the president\u2019s move to cut funding for the project.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI’m not happy about it, ’cause I’m employed there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

John Mooney, an Ironworker Local 580 member from Queens, also pleaded for the president to save his job.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aPresident Donald Trump, you said you want to make America great. Union workers go home and they can afford to make their communities better,\u201d he said. \u201cMoney talks, bulls— walks. \u2026 So free up the money, get this tube flowing underneath the Hudson,\u201d Mooney said.<\/p>\n

Gateway officials said $1 billion has already been spent on the project so far, which Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer said would be a shame to toss away.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIf we stop now, we’ll have wasted $1 billion in taxpayer dollars, and residents will be left with a huge half-finished pit in their backyard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The entire project wouldn\u2019t be necessary if former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2010 hadn\u2019t pulled funding for the ARC Project, which also aimed to build a new set of train tunnels beneath the Hudson River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Construction on the first new set of Hudson River train tunnels in more than a century will halt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-115587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}