OHL to rehabilitate New York’s Canarsie Tunnel at a cost of 447 million euros

The OHL Group is set to rehabilitate and improve the capacity of the Canarsie Tunnel in New York, at a cost of 447 million euros, through its subsidiary Judlau. The project has been awarded by New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to the Joint Venture led by Judlau (70%) with TC Electric, a company with which the OHL subsidiary has partnered previously for similar projects. 

The Canarsie Tunnel is the main connection between Brooklyn and Manhattan and serves the busy subway L line. This project includes the rehabilitation of the Canarsie Tunnel following the devastation of hurricane Sandy together with the upgrade of the capacity of the First Avenue and Bedford Avenue subway stations and the construction of a new Avenue B substation.

In 2012, hurricane Sandy caused serious damage to New York’s infrastructures. During the storm, the Canarsie Tunnel was flooded, and a large part of the electricity and communications equipment and subsystems were damaged. The Joint Venture will perform civil work for rehabilitating the tunnel, repairing the defects and replacing the roadbed, tracks, sleepers and other elements. The project includes the modernization of structures, energy, lighting, signals and communications components in the tunnel. In addition, the team will carry out excavations, relocation of utilities, upgrades and reinforcements of the First Avenue station in Manhattan and of the Bedford station in Brooklyn. As a preventive measure, flood mitigation and protection systems will be installed for reducing the risk of future flooding and for protecting the critical components. The project will increase the frequency of the trains on the New York Subway’s L Line.

Judlau, a subsidiary of the OHL Group, has performed major projects for the MTA worth close to 3.7 billion euros. Judlau and TC Electric are working on eight projects connected with hurricane Sandy damages for a number of agencies of the MTA, totaling approximately 1.1 billion euros. Five of these projects are directly related to the repair and reinforcement of five different tunnels.

Judlau has performed other projects in New York, including the renovation of the recently inaugurated 63^rd and 72^nd street subway stations, located on New York’s new Second Avenue subway line, the largest expansion of the subway in half a century. Other significant successful bids by the OHL Group include the recent award of the I-405 in California, the largest contract in the history of the OHL Group in the United States.

The OHL Group has been present in the U.S. since 2006. The company is currently operating in nine states: Florida, New York, New Jersey, Texas, California, Illinois, Connecticut, Virginia and Massachusetts – and in the District of Columbia.