Gateway commission says tunnel construction has resumed

Construction on the Gateway Tunnel, paused for weeks thanks to a funding dispute with President Donald Trump’s administration, has officially resumed, the Gateway Development Commission announced this afternoon.

Trump has been threatening to “terminate” the long-awaited, $16 billion tunnel project since last fall, and while enough funding had already been provided for construction to continue for months afterwards, those funds officially ran out on February 6, forcing work to grind to a halt. According to the GDC, nearly 1,000 workers were affected by the stoppage.

Both the GDC and the states of New Jersey and New York quickly filed lawsuits to force a release of the funds, with rapid success; the day the funding was supposed to run out, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily resume the project. Some further legal action followed – and more is likely to come in the future – but the administration began doling out the $235 million in frozen funds shortly after an appeals court declined to halt the lower court’s ruling.

The Gateway project has bipartisan support in New Jersey and New York, but the public fight against the Trump administration’s actions has been largely led by Democrats, and the GDC thanked Democratic Govs. Kathy Hochul and Mikie Sherrill and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer by name in its announcement of work resumption.

“We are incredibly thankful for Governor Sherrill, New Jersey’s congressional delegation, and the many other leaders who have called on the Administration to stop delaying the most urgent infrastructure project in the country,” GDC Co-Chair Balpreet Grewal-Virk said in a statement. “We’re seeing the results of this effort now, as hundreds of workers go back to our construction sites.”

Two Gateway construction workers, one of whom was among the 1,000 workers forced off the job for weeks by the funding freeze, will be the invited guests of New Jersey Democratic House members at tonight’s State of the Union address.

New Jersey’s Republicans, who could face some political risks as long as the Trump administration continues battling the project, have similarly said they want to see the project continue. They’ve been much less willing, however, to lay blame on the man who decided to throw it in limbo, instead emphasizing the importance of compromise.

“We want to get this thing done,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) said today. “Whether [Trump] should have done it or not is open for debate, but the Democrats just posture and don’t try to come together and say, ‘Mr. President, we want to meet with you on this, what will it take?’ I think there’s a point of compromise there.”