A 10-year, $2 billion project to rebuild the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J., has received a $455 million boost to continue working on structural steel that was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The greenlight for that project comes as a larger, decade-long, $2 billion “Restore the George” program to rehabilitate the iconic span for the next 90 years is past the halfway point.
The Port Authority’s board of commissioners approved allocating $455 million toward the work. It awarded two contracts totaling $226 million to El Sol Contracting/ES II Enterprises on Thursday. The work is set to start in June.
The contracts make “priority steel repairs” to the 92-year-old bridge’s lower level, which was built in 1962, said Dennis Stabile, Port Authority tunnel, bridges and terminals department deputy director.
A contract issued in 2019 was canceled in part due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was repackaged into three contracts, Stabile said. The pandemic and resulting traffic and revenue declines caused a $3 billion revenue drop between 2020 and 2022.
The first contract was awarded in 2022, which started some of the steel work, which the recently approved project continues and builds on.
This project makes priority repairs to the bridge’s lower-level structural steel, strips off lead-based paint and replaces four moveable platforms under the lower level used to do regular repairs on it.
Officials expect limited impact to traffic on the lower level for the remainder of the Restoring the George project, because lanes will be closed during off-peak hours. A work platform has been installed that limits the need for peak-commuting time closures.
The overall Restore the George program is 55% done and is currently planned for completion by 2030, authority officials said.
Workers are nearing the home stretch of replacing each of the nearly 600 vertical suspender cables that transfer the weight of the bridge decks and traffic to the bridge’s mighty main suspension cables.
Work on the south side suspender ropes is expected to be completed by mid-2025. The south walk to separate pedestrians and bicycles will open toward the end of 2026, officials said.
All work is slated to be complete in Dec. 2029.
Source: CBS News, NJ.com
