The Gateway project includes a pair of new passenger-train tunnels under the Hudson River, and also the rehabilitation of the existing tubes, which are more than a hundred years old and were damaged during Hurricane Sandy, in 2012. A want of money and a surplus of political petulance have thwarted versions of this undertaking for three decades. Under President Joe Biden, federal funding finally became available, the lion’s share in 2024, only for President Donald Trump to threaten to withdraw it a year later. The funding stopped during the government shutdown last fall, and the Trump Administration refused to restore it. Trump reportedly told Senator Charles Schumer that he’d free up the funds only if Penn Station and Dulles Airport were renamed for him. A month ago, work on the Gateway project stopped. No money, no tunnel. Around a thousand union laborers were laid off.