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Gateway Hudson River tunnel funds are flowing, but no shovels are in the ground
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Feb 17, 2026
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Feb 17, 2026
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The federal government has disbursed another $77 million in previously frozen funding for the Gateway project, but work has yet to resume on the new set on Hudson River tunnels.
It’s the second installment of the $205 million a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release in a lawsuit filed by New York’s and New Jersey’s attorneys general. The Trump administration had paused already-allocated funding for the project in October, eventually leading to construction to be suspended earlier this month when the Gateway Development Commission said it had exhausted a line of credit.
But the commission on Tuesday still stopped short of saying when thousands of construction workers could get back to building.
“Construction remains paused for now and we continue to work with our contractors to plan how to deploy these funds in the most effective way and get workers back on the job to resume some construction as soon as possible,” Gateway spokesperson Molly Beckhardt said.
Gary LaBarbera, president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council, said the project needs consistent funding in order to get back on course.
“You know what? That's only $200 million out of billions. You can't start a project, stop a project, start a project, stop a project,” he said at a rally on Tuesday. “As a builder, President Trump, you know this. You need certainty. You need continuity. So I am asking … forget about the legal challenges. Please release the money. Let us build this tunnel. Let us go to work.”
The $16 billion Gateway project, one of the largest public works projects in the country, is intended to replace the century-old tubes serving NJ Transit and Amtrak trains heading to and from Penn Station in Manhattan.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, President Donald Trump called the project a “future boondoggle” and said it will be "financially catastrophic for the region.” The president said the project would encounter cost overruns “unless hard work and proper planning is done NOW.”
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill blamed Trump for increasing costs by interrupting the work.
“Until his illegal actions forced the project to shut down, threw 1,000 hardworking men and women off the job and threatened the commutes of 200,000 people a day, Gateway was on time and on budget," she said in a statement.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had called Trump four times to urge him to unfreeze the funding.
“ Let's stop the chaos, let's stop the insanity," she said at the rally Tuesday. "Let them work, Mr. President. Let them work. Let them get back to work right now."
Tagged
Kathy Hochul
Mikie Sherrill
Politics
donald trump
new jersey
new york city
new york state
transportation
Catalina Gonella
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