Costs to fight cancelled tunnel exceed USD 1M

13 June 2011

New Jersey’s legal fees to fight its USD 271M bill from the federal government for the cancelled ARC tunnel passed USD 1M it was announced on Monday.

The state attorney general’s office released invoices for legal work of USD 72,588 done in March, and another USD 54,000 in April.

Washington D.C.-based law firm Patton Boggs billed the state USD 950,000 in December 2010 when it was retained to fight the federal government’s bill after governor Chris Christie cancelled the tunnel in October, over the concern of cost overruns.

New Jersey spent USD 610M on preliminary engineering and design for the ARC tunnel before its cancellation, with USD 271M from the Federal Transit Administration.