\u201cThis makes absolutely no sense, yet here we are,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday at a Lower Manhattan meeting of the Gateway Development Commission. \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even after federal funding was paused in October, construction has continued at five sites in Manhattan, New Jersey and in the Hudson with a line of credit that Gateway chief Thomas Prendergast<\/a> described as a \u201cshort-term solution.\u201d But the line of credit that has propped up that work is now set to expire within days.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be very direct about what we\u2019re facing here: this transportation crisis is a five-alarm fire, nothing short of that,\u201d said New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Federal transportation officials said in October that the pause would hold until the completion of a review that determines whether the project\u2019s contracts are in line with the administration\u2019s rules on women- and minority-owned businesses. At the time, the White House\u2019s budget director claimed spending on the project was being used for \u201cunconstitutional\u201d<\/a> diversity efforts.<\/p>\n With 70% of the $16 billion project funded by federal grants, members of the Gateway Development Commission \u2014 the public authority created in 2019 to carry out a series of passenger-rail improvements between New York and New Jersey \u2014 conceded that the project could be on the brink.<\/p>\n At the heart of those improvements is the new tunnel, which would replace the 116-year-old North River Tunnel that suffered extensive damage during Hurricane Sandy<\/a> in 2012. The creaky rail tunnel regularly subjects 200,000 daily travelers on New Jersey Transit and Amtrak to commuting headaches and delays. It is the key artery linking the Garden State to New York City and a vital connector along the Northeast Corridor, the Boston to Washington D.C. span that is the busiest rail stretch in the country.<\/p>\n The new rail tunnel is supposed to be carved out by two tunnel-boring machines<\/a> that are as long as a football field and which will be built on site. One machine is ready for assembly in New Jersey while the other is set to be shipped next month, even as Gateway could face a similar fate as a previous proposed rail tunnel in the river that was scrapped by then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cPausing construction even temporarily will have serious negative consequences,\u201d Prendergast said. \u201cFirst and foremost, nearly 1,000 workers who are employed working on this project will lose their jobs working on Gateway.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA longer construction pause could put all 96,000 jobs that would be required to complete this entire program at risk,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Alicia Glen, a former deputy mayor who now co-chairs the Gateway Development Commission, said members have to contend with \u201cthe harsh reality that President Trump himself made the decision to cut off federal funding\u201d while commuters deal with frequent delays in the existing tunnels.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of you who\u2019ve been in these tunnels know this is not just an idle threat, this is not a drill \u2014 this is showtime,\u201d Glen said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t have a tunnel in service, then the fallout for our economy and for our nation will, in fact, be catastrophic.\u201d<\/p>\n A White House spokesperson threw the potential shutdown of the project back at Trump\u2019s political rivals.<\/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 spokesperson Kush Desai said 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\u00a0<\/p>\n Representatives from the building trades, several unions and even some construction workers\u00a0 personally appealed to Trump to keep the project in motion.<\/p>\n Addressing Trump directly, ironworker John Mooney noted how he\u2019s from Queens \u2014 \u201clike where you came from,\u201d he said \u2014 while his union job allows him to own a home there while raising two teenage daughters and coaching youth softball and volleyball.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Donald Trump, you said you want to make America great,\u201d said Mooney, a member of Ironworkers Local 580. \u201cUnion workers go home and they can afford to make their communities better, they can afford to make their communities great.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Sirois of Teamsters Union Local 282, said he wanted to \u201cmake it personal\u201d for Trump while saying he remains \u201coptimistic\u201d that the project can be put back on track for laborers who would build Gateway.<\/p>\n \u201cLeave the political stuff aside, look at the hardworking people that this project will affect,\u201d he said. \u201cNot 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Prendergast, a veteran transportation executive who previously led the MTA, New York City Transit and the Long Island Rail Road, said he remains optimistic about Gateway\u2019s future.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere there\u2019s a will, there\u2019s a way and I\u2019m confident we\u2019ll come out on the other side, we\u2019ll have the money and we\u2019ll complete this program,\u201d he said in response to a question from THE CITY.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elected officials, hardhats and transit advocates from both sides of the Hudson River pleaded with President Donald Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-116642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116642","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=116642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Workers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1225_gateway_tunnel_construction.jpg\")
Some work on the Gateway tunnel project to link New York and New Jersey is already underway in the Hudson River, as seen in December 2025. Credit: Via Gateway Development Commission<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1225_gatway_boring_machine.jpg\")
Two tunnel boring machines the length of football fields will be used to building a new passenger rail tunnel in the Hudson River. Credit: Via Gateway Development Commissi<\/p>\n![\"Construction](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/021425_gateway_construction_1.jpg\")
There are five sites in New York, New Jersey and in the Hudson River where Gateway tunnel work has started, Feb. 14, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n