A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from suspending billions of dollars of funding for a rail tunnel under the Hudson River, pending future arguments in the case.
Construction of the new $16 billion rail tunnel, the biggest transportation infrastructure project in the United States, had come to a halt earlier in the day, four months after the Trump administration suspended its federal funding.
Judge Jeannette A. Vargas of the Southern District of New York ordered the federal government to unlock the billions in federal grants to the program, as the case proceeds through the courts. If the Trump administration complies, the project could soon restart construction.
“Plaintiffs have adequately demonstrated that they would imminently suffer” irreparable harm, Judge Vargas wrote in her 11-page ruling, if the project was “forced to shut down its operations.”
The project, known as Gateway, centers on a tunnel under between New York City and New Jersey that is meant to replace an aging and deteriorating one that often causes train delays and bottlenecks.
Nearly 1,000 people have been working at sites on both sides of the Hudson and in the river, and more than $1 billion has already been spent, according to the project’s planners, the Gateway Development Commission.
By Friday morning, the only work being done at four of those sites was the winding down of activity and securing of equipment as crews prepared to be laid off indefinitely, while negotiations continued in Washington and litigation played out in two federal courts.
The commission sued the government for breach of contract in a federal court in Washington on Monday, contending that it was owed more than $200 million in expenses that had not been reimbursed. The states of New York and New Jersey filed a separate suit in federal court in Manhattan this week.
“We’re just in shutdown mode,” said Guido Rivieccio, as he stood on a hushed construction site on the western edge of Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, surrounded by fellow workers who feared they could be out of work by Saturday.
Mr. Rivieccio, a shop steward for Local 731 of the Laborers’ Union, said his crews had spent much of the week “wrapping everything up.” That involved laying down the booms of giant yellow and red-and-white cranes and blowing liquid out of utility lines to prevent freezing.
The workers were preparing for a pause of unpredictable duration, so they would not remove the cranes and other equipment from the sites just yet, said Thomas Prendergast, the chief executive of the Gateway commission.
“If the pause is going to be days and weeks, it could stay here,” he said. “If it’s going to be months, that would be a different story.”
Some of the workers facing layoffs were working on barges in the ice-filled Hudson River, driving hollow steel cylinders called “king piles” into the river’s bottom, Mr. Prendergast said. But at least a few of them would have to remain, to protect the work that has been completed and to steer ships away from it, he said.
Elected officials from New York and New Jersey held out hope that the Trump administration would relent before the end of the week. But it was not clear what might mollify the president.
His administration has sought to pressure Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, to help name New York’s Penn Station and Washington Dulles International Airport after Mr. Trump in exchange for releasing the frozen Gateway funding.
Top administration officials have told Mr. Schumer in recent weeks that the money would be released if he agreed to help name the facilities in Mr. Trump’s honor, according to four people familiar with the private conversations. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal the private discussions.
On Thursday night, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York responded on social media to a report about the proposed trade from Punchbowl News.
“These naming rights aren’t tradable as part of any negotiations, and neither is the dignity of New Yorkers,” Ms. Gillibrand said on X. “I demand that the president put people first and unfreeze this project and all the others his administration has been holding hostage for his personal gain.”
Federal transportation officials had said that the suspension would last until a review of the project’s contracts for compliance with new policies regarding diversity could be completed. Catherine Rinaldi, executive vice president of the commission, said it had responded to all of the transportation department’s requests and that all of its contracts with disadvantaged businesses had been “appropriately certified.”
The White House gave a different reason for the prolonged suspension in a statement last month, pinning responsibility on Senator Schumer and other Democrats for refusing to negotiate and alluding to their stances on immigration policies.
Patrick McGeehan is a Times reporter who covers the economy of New York City and its airports and other transportation hubs.
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