New York officials are suing the Trump Administration to force the feds to release $60 million in tax dollars to extend the Second Avenue Subway.
Officials, who want to extend the line into East Harlem as part of a $7 billion project, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington.
“Once again, New York has been forced to sue the Trump Administration to stop them from erratically shutting off billions of dollars in previously committed infrastructure funding,” liberal New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement. “For nearly a century, leaders have made big promises to the people of East Harlem about the expansion of the Second Avenue Subway. For nearly a century, those promises have been broken. When I took office, I pledged to be the Governor who kept her promise to this neighborhood and finally got this subway built.
“We have already made enormous progress — work is underway and the project is moving on schedule and on budget. But Donald Trump’s unlawful funding pause has put this entire project at risk,” Hochul added. “His actions alone have jeopardized the commutes of over 100,000 New Yorkers and the jobs of thousands of union workers, but New York will not back down. We told Donald Trump that if he did not restore the funding for this project, we’d see him in court.”
The governor invoked the Gateway Project, saying that the president “has two options: restore the money now, or wait for a judge to force him to.” Trump tried to stop funding to the Gateway Project but was unsuccessful.
For the New York City project, the money has been on hold since October, and the U.S. Department of Transportation is reviewing whether the project complies with a new federal rule prohibiting contracting requirements based on race or gender, Bloomberg Law reported.
“USDOT is committed to ensuring hardworking taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly,” a U.S. Department of Transportation spokesperson said in an email statement to Bloomberg Law. “We are considering all legal avenues.”
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