New Jersey Transit's Portal North Bridge project has had some issues come to light due to a lawsuit. The engineer who oversaw the project is accusing the agency of ignoring his whistleblower concerns about the design of the new bridge.
According to a recently filed lawsuit, Mohammed Nasim, the agency's former chief of construction management, began reporting "design defects including the dangers of track settlement and issues with construction work being built too close to the existing corridor, and the navigation issues in the river."
The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Essex County last month.
These issues, the suit says, “jeopardized the safety of the traveling public, posed potential dangers to rail passenger trains, disruption of service and delays to the project,” including the potential to derail passenger trains.
Nasim is an engineer with 34 years of experience, including Amtrak, where he worked on other Gateway projects.
According to the suit, Nasim raised the issues a number of times, both publicly and privately. His warnings were ignored, he says. In some cases, Nasim alleges, he was told to “shut up” or that he didn’t know what he was talking about, according to the lawsuit.
The project Nasim was overseeing is the $2.3 billion Portal North Bridge, a replacement for the Portal Bridge, a 113-year-old swing span that is a frequent cause of delays on the Northeast Corridor. The bridge crosses the Hackensack River between Kearny and Secaucus.
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Source: MSN.com
