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New Jersey Suspends Penn Station Expansion Project

By DNAinfo Staff on September 13, 2010 1:32pm  | Updated on September 13, 2010 1:33pm

A detail of the ARC project sites in Midtown.
A detail of the ARC project sites in Midtown.
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Courtesy of the Port Authority

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — New Jersey has temporarily suspended all work on an $8.7 billion transit project that would bore two new commuters tunnels under the Hudson River to Midtown and would expand Penn Station, the Newark Star-Ledger reported.

The state said it put the brakes on all new work, property acquisitions and additional contract bids over the weekend after officials warned the project could go as much as a billion dollars over budget, the paper said.

The hiatus is expected to last 30 days, so that officials can evaluate their finances before moving forward. Billions have already been committed to the project.

NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein told the paper he hopes to prove the original estimate is accurate.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey referred all inquiries regarding the matter to NJ Transit, who did not immediately return a call for comment.

Construction has already begun on the New Jersey side of the tunnel and work was expected to begin in Manhattan later this year. The main work in Midtown is slated to begin in late 2011, Howard Sackel, the director of the project for the Port Authority, has said.

No residents are slated to be forced out by the project, but if it moves forward, 93 businesses will be displaced and thousands will be affected by construction. Even partial evictions could last as long as 10 years, officials have said.