New Jersey’s massive statewide transportation project shutdown comes about as the result of Gov. Christie’s June 30, 2016 Executive Order 210, which declared a State of Emergency due to the New Jersey State Senate’s failure to act on reauthorizing the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority (TTFA or the “Authority”). Without an established plan for providing additional funding sources for the TTFA, the Authority will exhaust all of its available funds in August 2016. In order to ration the remaining funds, the Governor ordered the “immediate and orderly shutdown” of all TTFA-funded state and local transportation projects that are “not absolutely essential,” and directed the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and the Executive Director of New Jersey Transit (NJT) to develop plans to accomplish this.

The shutdown a ects projects at all stages of procurement and performance, except for projects that are funded by the federal government. In accordance with the Governor’s directive, the NJDOT and NJT prepared a list of all nonessential TTFA-funded projects that will start being halted on Friday, July 8th, at 11:59 pm. According to the Associated Construction Contractors of New Jersey (ACCNJ), contractors working on active projects included in the project shutdown lists should have been noti ed July 6th, by the NJDOT’s Project Resident Engineer by way of certi ed mail, email-notice and telephonic communication. The ACCNJ further reports that the Resident Engineer will serve as the point of contact for contractors throughout the shutdown.