The authority awarded a third contract, for $15.3 million, to Crisdel Group, Plainfield, N.J., to resurface the Outerbridge Crossing, another Staten Island-New Jersey span. Completion is set for later this year.
Combined, the three projects are anticipated to create more than 5,000 construction jobs and generate more than $600 million in wages, says the agency. Construction for all three bridges is set to start this year.
The new work comes as the region embarks on several other significant bridge projects, including the state's $3.9-billion replacement of the Tappan Zee bridge across the Hudson River and the state Dept. of Transportation's $517-million design-build upgrade of the Kosciuszko Bridge in Brooklyn.
DOT says bids are set to be opened this summer for the latter project, which has federal funding, with construction set to start in fall and be completed in spring 2018.
The Port Authority also expects work to begin next year to replace suspender cables on the New Jersey-to-Manhattan George Washington Bridge.
The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, a division of the city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, also is starting a $236-million design-build upper-deck replacement of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge linking Staten Island and Brooklyn.
A New Rochelle, N.Y.-based unit of Tutor-Perini won the five-year contract in December to replace the existing concrete-filled steel deck with a new steel orthotropic deck to improve the span's performance under wind or seismic conditions, says the authority. Work also includes construction of reversible high-occupancy vehicle lanes.
Meanwhile, the contractor executive wonders if the transportation construction workload will stretch regional resources of marine equipment and labor, particularly welders, which could disrupt bridge completion timetables that are now set to coincide with the Panama Canal opening.
Other local executives have speculated on whether the regional projects without federal funds, such as the Bayonne and Verrazano spans, would use steel fabricated in China.
