Gateway Back on Track with Full Funding

By Anthony Birritteri, Editor-in-Chief On Feb 18, 2026

The $16 billion Gateway Tunnel Project is back on track for now as the federal government has released $204 million it had been withholding from the project. This entails nearly $127 million released today, and $77 million released yesterday. With $30 million released on Feb.13, the federal government has met its full obligation for now regarding funding disbursement.

The money was supposed to be released last Friday afternoon when, the day before, the  2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City let stand the prior week’s temporary restraining order, issued by U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, against the Trump administration’s move to suspend $16 billion in Gateway funding.

With this full reimbursement, the Gateway Development Commission (GDC) said today it is working with its contractors to deploy the money and resume work on the Hudson Tunnel project as soon as possible. “Letters will be sent to contractors today, and construction activities are expected to resume next week. We continue to pursue all avenues to secure access to the full amount of federal funding for the Hudson Tunnel Project, including our lawsuit,” the GDC statement said.

Earlier this month, the states of New York and New Jersey sued the Trump administration for illegally withholding a total of $15 billion in Congressionally approved funding for the project, which entails building a new two-track rail tunnel under the Hudson River and rehabilitating the 116-year-old existing North River Tunnel, among other infrastructure improvements. It is considered the most urgent rail project in the U.S., connecting New Jersey to Penn Station, NYC, to prevent catastrophic failure of the Northeast Corridor.

After a press conference in Flemington today, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said that President Donald Trump has cost the project, which was on time and on budget, millions of dollars by halting the work. “He put a lot of workers at risk, who had to go home and tell their families they think they’re out of a job. … This is a project that had about 1,000 people already employed. It could lead to almost 100,000 jobs in the region. It has a huge economic impact of about $20 billion. And this is an area of the country responsible for about 20% of the nation’s GDP. … The fact that the President of the United States, who [is facing] some big economic and jobs challenges, would then further hit the economy like this, was bewildering and illegal. So, [we] took him to court [and] we won.”

Though funding has been released, President Trump said he would not allow the federal government to pay for any cost overruns, calling the Gateway Project a “future boondoggle,” on Truth Social.

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