The MTA filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the federal government of withholding $60 million in contractually obligated funding for the Second Avenue Subway extension, the latest courtroom clash between New York’s transit authority and the Trump administration.
The suit targets what MTA officials describe as a deliberate freeze on money owed for the nearly $7 billion project that would extend the Q line from 96th Street north to new stations at 106th, 116th and 125th streets, finally delivering subway service to East Harlem after more than eighty years of broken promises.
“We intend to get every cent of what has been promised and frankly, based on the agreements, what’s owed to New Yorkers,” MTA chairperson and CEO Janno Lieber said Tuesday while testifying before the City Council. “And we’re not afraid to fight for it in court, just as we have successfully taken on the feds over congestion pricing.”
That comparison carries real weight right now. Just weeks ago, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to kill the Manhattan congestion pricing tolling plan that launched in January 2025. The Second Avenue fight arrives as construction also resumed last month on the Gateway Hudson River tunnel project, whose federal funding had been frozen, triggering its own legal battle and a brief work stoppage at sites in both New York and New Jersey.
Governor Kathy Hochul made clear the administration had been warned this was coming.
“We told Donald Trump that if he did not restore the funding for this project, we’d see him in court. Today, we are doing just that,” Hochul said in a statement. “Just like Gateway, Donald Trump has two options: restore the money now, or wait for a judge to force him to.”
The lawsuit lands at a critical moment. The project is on the verge of awarding a contract for excavation on Second Avenue, and two of the four total contracts have already been issued. The first, awarded in early 2024, covered the relocation of underground utilities. A second contract followed last August for construction of a new tunnel running north from 116th Street. The project will also incorporate a tunnel built in the 1970s that has sat unused for more than fifty years, one of the more remarkable pieces of dormant infrastructure buried under the city.
For East Harlem residents, the stakes are not abstract. The elevated lines that once ran over Second and Third avenues were torn down in the mid-20th century, and the neighborhood has been waiting for a replacement ever since. The first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, with stations at 72nd, 86th and 96th streets, opened on New Year’s Day 2017. Phase Two was supposed to follow, and after years of delays and financing complications, work is finally underway. The federal funding freeze threatens to slow or halt that momentum at the worst possible time.
Lieber did not soften his assessment of what this project means or who it serves.
“Second Avenue Subway is an incredibly worthy project, long overdue transit justice for East Harlem, promised since the 1940s,” he said. “And Phase 2 is well underway.”
The Trump administration has been openly critical of construction costs on major infrastructure projects, and New York’s megaprojects have become a particular target. The congestion pricing fight, the Gateway battle, and now the Second Avenue funding freeze suggest a pattern rather than a series of isolated disputes. The MTA, backed by Hochul, appears to have settled on a consistent response: litigate and win.
Partial funding for the expansion comes from congestion pricing revenue, which the administration has also tried to kill. The fact that revenue stream survived in court makes the MTA’s legal posture here more credible than it might otherwise look.
The $60 million at issue is a fraction of the total project cost, but the principle matters. Contracts have been signed. Work is in progress. Excavation is about to begin. Letting the federal government walk away from signed agreements mid-construction would set a precedent no transit agency in the country could afford.
New York has been waiting for this stretch of subway since before most of its current residents were born. The courts may end up being the fastest route to getting it built.
