A former New Jersey transit engineer, is suing the agency, alleging it ignored his whistleblower concerns about safety hazards on the new portal North Bridge.

Mohammed Nasim was the chief of construction management at NJ Transit and claims he repeatedly raised issues about the bridge's design that could pose a risk to public safety.

In return, he says, he allegedly faced retaliation, discrimination and ultimately got fired from his job.

The $2.3 billion portal North Bridge Project will replace the existing more than century old swing span that's notorious for getting stuck and causing commuter delays.

It's also an important part of the broader Gateway program.

Northjersey.com transportation reporter Colleen Wilson broke the story and joins me now.

Colleen, great to see you.

Great to chat with you.

So walk me through what this engineer says happened to him, what the concerns were that he saw he was overseeing this project.

Sure.

It sounds like pretty early on in his job at New Jersey Transit, overseeing this project, that he was starting to see concerns and issues related to the way the ground was settling and soil was settling on the construction site.

It sounds like he started raising these concerns to others at the agency and was kind of getting blown off.

At least those are the allegations he makes in his lawsuit.

So the concerns began to elevate to, you know, issues that could relate to construction equipment, moving on the construction site and other kind of delays to the project because of, you know, ground stabilization.

And then ultimately, he also raised concerns about how this could impact the current traffic on the bridge that is right next to the construction site, the current total bridge.

So not just safety concerns for passengers and the public, but also that this could really slow down the entire project and just wreaks havoc on the area.

What did he allege happened when he brought those concerns forward?

Yeah, it sounds like according to his, you know, lawsuit, his accusations really didn't go anywhere as far as New Jersey Transit that, you know, he was accused of not knowing what he was talking about and just kind of silenced.

And, you know, they started shifting maybe some of his roles to other people.

You know, and so it was it sounded like, you know, he really he even had his workplace or workspace searched.

He said, and then was ultimately fired, you know, pretty unceremoniously, it sounded like.

Is this someone who has quite a few years of experience in this field?

So his concerns might be deemed credible?

Sure.

Yeah.

He's I think I believe he has more than 30 years of experience as an engineer, has worked on myriad projects.

I'm sure similar to this.

And before he was at New Jersey Transit, he was at Amtrak and was working on Gateway projects and certainly involved in that.

You know, that realm.

Have we seen this in the past?

We're talking about a project of this magnitude, both economically but also the size of it, where concerns come up during design portions?

I mean, is that somewhat typical or does this situation seem to stand out, at least on its face?

From what we can tell in the lawsuit?

You know, I don't think I could jump to or speculate from my limited expertise on other similar projects.

But one thing that I did think about last night actually was the the highway near and the highway wall near Philadelphia, I think it was 1995 where that collapsed on because of certain sand that was used and materials that were used.

And there was some kind of, you know, issue there that that wasn't properly investigated.

There had been red flags before that collapse.

And so this is not the same thing.

But you do have to wonder, these are red flags being raised by someone.

What is being done?

What are the mitigation?

Should this have been caught sooner?

Like, should they be encountering this problem the way it is now?

And then?

What impact is it going to have on the future?

I mean, there have already been work stoppages because of this, these issues.

So how is that going to impact the project long term?

Very quickly, since we are talking about the Gateway project, what's the status right now with financing funding?

This is a $16 billion project that has been years in the making.

So the $16 billion project that you're talking about is the tunnels program.

So the phase one of the Gateway program is the Port of North Bridge, the Hudson Yards, Concrete casing project, which is on the New York side, right where the tunnel will enter New York and near Penn Station.

And then, of course, the the big one, which is the $16 billion tunnels portion, which is rehabilitating the old tunnels that are there and building two new ones.

So that is still in its final phases of getting that this last final federal grant, a 6.8.

What's expected to be a $6.8 billion grant from the FTA.

So they are in the final phase of getting to that grant agreement.

And so what they did January 31st was file its financial plan, which outlined who's paying what, basically, and it showed New Jersey is going to pay significantly less than what was first assumed because of the federal contribution.

It's just a unprecedented level in U.S. modern history of federal support for an infrastructure project, a mass transit project like this.

Colleen Wilson Northjersey.com the record, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.