Trump Admin Cuts Off Funding for NYC Transportation, Blames ‘DEI’

The Department of Transportation is blocking funding to two highly anticipated New York City transportation infrastructure projects.

The Department issued an interim final rule that bars “race- and sex-based contracting requirements from federal grants,” according to a press statement, and issued an administrative review on that basis of two New York transportation infrastructure projects to determine “whether any unconstitutional practices are occurring.”

Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought was first to announce the decision.

“Roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles,” Vought said in an X post.^[1]

One of these projects is the Hudson Tunnel reconstruction project, a multi-billion-dollar initiative to repair an existing tunnel damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and to construct a new double-track tunnel that would bridge New Jersey and Manhattan. The project is part of an initiative to “improve and expand rail service in the Northeast Corridor, the most heavily traveled passenger rail line in the country,” according to the DOT’s website,^[2] so the temporary funding loss is bound to affect more than just New York residents.

The other is the Second Avenue Subway, a long-promised and highly anticipated plan to extend the Q subway line to East Harlem, a working-class neighborhood with a dominant Hispanic and Black^[3] population.

The project was first proposed in 1929 but has faced numerous obstacles. The second of what was planned to be the final phase of the project was greenlit^[4] by the MTA a little over a month ago, and early work was scheduled to begin later this year. The new timing is unclear. The DOT is now refusing to process a $300 million disbursement for the project.

“The Department is focusing on these projects because they are arguably the largest infrastructure initiatives in the Western Hemisphere, and the American people want to see them completed quickly and efficiently,” the department said in the press statement.

Here’s the kicker, though: Quickness and efficiency might have gone completely out the window, and DEI has nothing to do with that.

Due to the government shutdown^[5], which started after midnight last night and currently has no clear end in sight, the DOT shared that they have since furloughed the civil rights staff that was supposed to conduct the review, and now the process “will take more time.”

The move could be a direct play at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of whom represent New York in Congress and refused to cave to Republican pressure on the appropriations bill after attending an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and other Republican leadership. Democrats are demanding the inclusion of healthcare policies like the reversal of Medicaid cuts and the extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies to any appropriations bill.

Following the Oval Office meeting, Trump posted a vulgar and racist AI-generated deepfake video^[6] of the two congressmen on his Truth Social account.

In a press statement on the news, the DOT referred to the government shutdown as “the Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies shutdown,” with a misspelling of Jeffries’ last name.

This isn’t the Trump administration’s first attack on New York City transit this week, let alone this year.

The government decided to cut MTA’s access to millions of dollars of security grant funding, Streetsblog^[7] reported on Tuesday, over objections to the city’s sanctuary jurisdictions for immigrants.

Every transit system receives some money from the Department of Homeland Security’s Transit Security Grant Program, established after the 9/11 attacks to ensure security in the public transit system.

New York Attorney General Letitia James promptly sued DHS on Tuesday, and a federal judge has since issued a temporary block.^[8][9]