{"id":200383,"date":"2026-04-17T04:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/200383\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T04:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:52:16","slug":"feds-restore-funding-to-second-ave-subway-hours-before-court-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/200383\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds restore funding to Second Ave. Subway hours before court hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration has cried uncle in its bid to keep funding from the Second Avenue Subway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In documents filed Thursday with the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. \u2014 where the MTA is currently suing the Trump administration for blocking the disbursement of roughly $60 million in congressionally approved funds \u2014 attorneys for the feds said they had completed a long-stalled review of the MTA\u2019s contracting practices, and found the transit agency to be in compliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cDOT has completed its review and is resuming the processing of reimbursement requests pursuant to normal procedures,\u201d a U.S. Department of Transportation official wrote to the MTA in a letter attached to the court filing.<\/p>\n

The USDOT has withheld all federal reimbursements<\/a> for the Second Avenue Subway project since October, when \u2014 in the early hours of the federal government shutdown \u2014 the Trump administration announced it would cut funds to two New York City transit projects, the subway and the Gateway Development Commission\u2019s Hudson River Tunnel.<\/p>\n

In so doing, the feds cited a rule \u2014 only added to the Federal Register after the announcement that funds were being withheld \u2014 forbidding the use of race and sex as factors in contracting under the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program.<\/p>\n

\"AA section of Phase Two of the Second Ave. Subway near E. 112th St. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Funding would be on hold, Transportation Secretary Duffy told the Daily News at the time, until the USDOT reviewed the contracting practices for compliance.<\/p>\n

MTA officials have insisted that they\u2019ve been in compliance since late October, a contention on which the USDOT has repeatedly declined to comment.<\/p>\n

By February, the USDOT was referring reporters to the White House, a spokesman for which linked the funding stoppage to Democratic opposition to Trump\u2019s immigration raids.<\/p>\n

In March, the Gateway Development Commission sued the feds in the Court of Federal Claims, arguing the Trump administration had breached its contract with the bi-state body when it withheld $205 million in funds from the Hudson River Tunnel project.<\/p>\n

Judge Richard Hertling ruled the GDC suit was moot<\/a> after a parallel legal effort in New York restored the funding under a temporary order. But Hertling said the Trump administration had \u201cbypassed the contractual procedural requirements and breached the contracts\u201d it had with Gateway by witholding the funds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AA section of Phase Two of the Second Ave. Subway near E. 112th St. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The feds sent Thursday\u2019s letter \u2014 effectively restoring funding for the Second Avenue Subway \u2014 hours before they were due to appear in the Court of Federal Claims to make oral arguments before Judge Philip S. Hadji.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t have taken seven months and a lawsuit to get here, but with the federal government\u2019s concession today on the courthouse steps, the MTA can now confidently forge ahead with Second Avenue Subway Phase 2,\u201d MTA Chairman Jano Lieber said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The MTA chief said an outstanding excavation contract could now be awarded, and would be shortly.<\/p>\n

In a tweet Thursday<\/a>, Gov. Hochul welcomed the federal government\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took the Trump Administration to court after they illegally froze funding for the Second Avenue Subway,\u201d she wrote. \u201cToday, they backed down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe freeze is over. For East Harlem and every New Yorker who relies on our subways, release our money immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has cried uncle in its bid to keep funding from the Second Avenue Subway. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,85,267,9,24,264,10,12,63,129,131,130,608],"class_list":{"0":"post-200383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-county","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-the-bronx","18":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","19":"tag-the-bronx-news","20":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200383","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=200383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}