The U.S. Department of Transportation processed the first $30 million tranche of previously frozen Gateway Development Commission funds for the $16 billion Hudson River Tunnel project.

The payment breaks a nearly five-month cash interruption and reopens a near-term path to restart halted construction once Treasury completes disbursement after the holiday. With the project’s credit line exhausted and ~1,000 workers already laid off, the timing of subsequent releases of the remaining roughly $200 million will determine whether remobilization can occur without further stop-start costs and schedule slippage. The disbursement also signals active compliance with Judge Jeannette Vargas’s order, reducing the likelihood of an extended administrative hold on near-term federal cashflows for the project.