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One of America's biggest construction jobs halts as Trump defunds Hudson River tunnels
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Feb 5, 2026
Modified Feb 5, 2026
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Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Feb 5, 2026
Modified Feb 5, 2026
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One of America’s largest construction projects began closing up shop on Thursday due to President Donald Trump’s order to withhold funding for the work — but it’ll take mountains of cash just to wind down the operation and secure the five construction sites.
Officials at the Gateway Development Commission who are running the $16 billion effort to build a new set of rail tunnels under the Hudson River said they’ve run out of money to continue building the tunnels. The project relies almost entirely on federal grants and loans, which were approved under former President Joe Biden and which Trump put on hold in October.
Now, the project’s leaders say they have no choice but to shut things down.
But halting such a massive job isn’t as simple as turning off the lights — it’ll take nearly a year of work and $15 million to $20 million a month.
“ Today is a setback,” Gateway CEO Tom Prendergast said Thursday. “ The Gateway Development Commission has expended every resource to prevent any interruption to the construction, but we've gone as far as we can go.”
If funding is not restored for the Gateway tunnel, the project's leaders will need to backfill a massive job site excavated on Manhattan's West Side.
Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
Gateway officials earlier this week filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, demanding a payout of $205 million in federal payments that have been withheld over the last four months. New York and New Jersey followed up with a lawsuit of their own to try to force the money to flow.
Now, the project only has enough money left to pay crews to close up shop. And shutting down the work — spread across five job sites on either side of the Hudson River — will be a massive undertaking in and of itself.
Massive holes in the ground on Manhattan’s West Side and in North Bergen, New Jersey, must be backfilled. Fences must be built around the job sites, and around-the-clock security guards must be hired to keep out trespassers and vandals. A section of the West Side Highway in Manhattan dug up as part of the project and a bike lane that was rerouted must both be restored.
A part of the Hudson River's bed, which was frozen and hardened with concrete in parts to support the new tunnels, must be converted back to its original state, officials said. The cofferdam, a massive barge-like operation set up in the middle of the river to install the concrete, will need to have lights and buoys affixed to it and must be maintained around the clock.
And a pair of massive boring machines the project ordered to carve out the 2.4 mile tunnel must be mothballed. Gateway officials currently have one of the machines, with another one slated to be delivered in March, and each was specifically designed to dig out different parts of the Hudson River tunnel.
The commission planned to eventually order two more boring machines for soft rock in the river bed.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em, Gateway officials tell laborers on the project.
Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
“To keep them from getting damaged we will eventually have to heat them,” said James Starace, Gateway’s chief of program delivery. “We'll have to keep the moisture out of them. Right now they're wrapped in a weathertight container, but that sooner or later, depending on how long this goes, we would have to take some next steps, possibly even moving to storage off the site.”
Starace said if the shutdown continues for a long time, it won’t be easy to get work started again — in part because workers and project engineers will have found jobs on other projects.
“These are, these are skilled laborers, and we're going lose them. You're not necessarily going to get that talent back immediately,” Starace said. “Once this is resolved, it's going to take a while.”
Trump's move to freeze funding for the Hudson River tunnel project may leave behind a set of holes in the ground across Manhattan and New Jersey.
Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
To date, Gateway has spent nearly $2 billion on construction.
The cost for maintaining all the project’s sites — even without any construction taking place — is expected to run $15 million to $20 million a month, according to lawyers with Gateway.
The Trump administration didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Sen. Chuck Schumer secured federal grants and loans for the project during the Biden administration, which amounted to the largest subsidy ever issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation for a mass transit project. The funding was also approved by Congress.
Ramsey Khalifeh contributed reporting to this story.
Tagged
Politics
new jersey
new york city
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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