Excavators churned again along the Hudson River waterfront this week.
Workers returned to jobsites tied to one of the nation’s most closely watched infrastructure megaprojects. Yet, the revival of construction activity may prove temporary.
Construction fully resumed across all sites on the $16 billion Hudson Tunnel Project, the Gateway Development Commission confirmed in an update on Tuesday, after a federal funding dispute caused contractors to suspend work on the project on Feb 6.
Crews have since restarted activities that had been paused, including riverbed stabilization and tunnel preparation in New Jersey and New York City, according to the update.
“The Hudson Tunnel Project is the most urgent passenger rail project in the country, and GDC’s mission is to deliver it as soon as possible,” said GDC CEO Tom Prendergast in the update. “Our workers are back, and we are moving full steam ahead across all our construction sites.”
But Prendergast also warned the restart could be short-lived. Without continued federal funding disbursements, GDC would have to pause construction again within two to three months.
“We will have no choice but to stop work again if the federal government does not continue to disburse the funds that are committed to the project,” said Prendergast. “This project is too important to delay.”
The back-and-forth around federal funding disbursements already slowed key parts of the project pipeline, according to the announcement. For example, contract awards for the actual Hudson River Tunnel, the centerpiece of the Hudson Tunnel Project, and the New Jersey Surface Alignment remain on hold, according to GDC.
The latest update follows an uncertain period for the long-planned rail project. Last September, the DOT paused funding as part of a review of how the Gateway project applied race- and sex-based contracting goals under the federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, a target of President Donald Trump’s war on what his administration calls “illegal DEI.”
The move triggered a breach-of-contract lawsuit from the Gateway Development Commission after hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements went unpaid. A federal judge later ordered the DOT to resume payments. That allowed immediate construction activity to restart, though uncertainty around longer-term work still lingers.
Construction milestones despite frozen funds
Amid the tumult, contractors have still managed to check certain construction milestones on the project.
For example, teams completed the Tonnelle Avenue Bridge and Utility Relocation Project in North Bergen, New Jersey. The bridge structure, substantially finished in late 2025, clears space beneath the roadway for tunnel boring machines.
Meanwhile, components of that first tunnel boring machine recently arrived at the North Bergen site and are currently being prepped for assembly, according to the update. Components of a second tunnel boring machine will begin to arrive in March, according to the GDC.
Elsewhere, crews have also finished the installation of the Hudson County Access Shaft slurry wall. This portion of the project creates a watertight perimeter for the shaft belowground. Crews will begin excavation in the spring.
On the Manhattan side of the project, construction teams poured more than 11,000 cubic yards of concrete for the tunnel floor, known as the invert slab. Installation of these tunnels are currently underway, according to the update.
