Statement attributable to Tom Wright, President and CEO of Regional Plan Association.

The US Department of Transportation’s move to freeze nearly $18 billion in funding for critical New York City infrastructure projects – like the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Avenue Subway – threatens to destabilize the nation’s largest and most indispensable economic regions in the U.S.

These investments are not merely transit upgrades—they are economic engines for both the tri-state metropolitan region and the nation as a whole. The nation’s economic vitality hinges on sustained, robust investment in the tri-state region’s thriving transit network.

This freeze also puts tens of thousands of jobs in jeopardy. Construction of the Second Avenue Subway is expected to create 70,000 jobs. The Gateway Program’s Hudson Tunnel Project alone is projected to generate 95,000 jobs and $19.6 billion in economic activity during its construction period.

The federal government must live up to its established funding commitments to these projects, and their goal should be to help deliver them as quickly and cost efficiently as possible. Such delays do just the opposite.

Infrastructure planning requires clarity and certainty in the process, not shortsighted decisions that threaten our local businesses, put our regional and national economy at risk, and undermine decades of bipartisan work to modernize the transportation system that keeps the entire nation moving.

RPA calls on the US DOT to immediately reverse the freeze and recommit to its obligations to fund the largest and most urgent infrastructure project in America.