The nine-part agreement also calls for the team to be fined $120,000 per day for each day it is late in completing the project by April 3, 2018, according to an April 10 article in The Journal News, which obtained the first two parts of the 5,000-page agreement through a Freedom of Information Law request.

The team will also be fined $14,000 per hour if the authority is unable to collect electronic tolls during peak weekday hours, and $10,500 per hour for cash tolls during peak hours, the agreement says.

Parts one and two of the agreement are available on the thruway's website. The remaining seven parts are being redacted for security reasons and have not yet been released, says Brian Conybeare, a thruway authority spokesman.

While the tough potential penalties are likely higher than normal, the project in turn is bigger than most, Conybeare says.

In comparison, Tutor Perini, contractor on the Tappan Zee Bridge upper deck replacement project, is subject to a penalty of $500 to $1,000 per lane per minute, depending on the time of day, says Dan Weiller, a thruway authority spokesman.

In fact, Tutor Perini was fined a total of $241,000 on Dec. 4, 2012, for failure to reopen lanes in time for the morning rush hour, which caused a major traffic jam throughout Rockland County, he adds.

Tappan Zee Constructors said in a statement that it is confident that it will meet the scheduled completion date. It acknowledges, however, that as with any complex project of this size and scope, "circumstances beyond our control" such as weather or other natural disasters could impact the schedule.

"Part of our planning process includes establishing contingencies that address these potential situations so that we are well-prepared ahead of time," it adds.

Meanwhile, the authority holds a $1.5-billion payment bond on the project and another $1.5-billion performance bond to ensure that Tappan Zee Constructors performs the work, Conybeare says.

New York City

Big Blasts Under Grand Central Completed

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Capital Construction Co. (MTACC) announced in a press release that no more major blasting is needed under Grand Central Terminal, where sandhogs are working on the East Side Access (ESA) project.

However, the contractors will continue to perform concrete work until June when their contract expires, and so additional small blasts may be necessary to trim out pieces of rock in the cavern, according to the MTACC.

Joint venture contractors Dragados USA and Judlau Contracting, holding underground contracts worth more than $1 billion, have since March 2007 headed up a team of about 1,000 workers who have toiled round the clock five days a week to complete more than 2,400 controlled blasts, MTACC says.

The $8.76-billion ESA project, the nation's largest public transportation initiative, includes building two caverns 160 ft below street level at Grand Central to house eight tracks for Long Island Rail Road trains. About 857,000 cu yd of "rocky muck," enough to bury Central Park 1 ft deep, have been removed to make way for new tunnels and caverns under Manhattan.

"Much work remains to be done to build the platforms and tracks, and finish what is currently raw, cave-like space," Michael Horodniceanu, MTA Capital Construction president, said in an April 9 statement on the blasts. "But we now have a fully built shell in which all future work will take place."

New York City

Post-Sandy, MTA Builds Steel Wall On Queens Tracks

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is building an 11,400-ft-long wall along the A Line in Broad Channel, Queens, to protect the track right-of-way from washouts should another Sandy-like storm hit the area. The A Line suffered signal, switch and cable damage when the Oct. 29, 2012, storm hit the region.

J-Track LLC, College Point, N.Y., is building the $15-million wall, which will be located on the Jamaica Bay side of Broad Channel and is scheduled to be completed this month. It will consist of 40-ft-high sheets of steel that will be drilled 33 ft below ground, leaving 7 ft for above-ground protection, says Kevin Ortiz, an MTA spokesman.

The wall will not protect infrastructure or the tracks from floodwaters, however, he adds.