I-81 viaduct project nears local hiring goal, report says

Local hiring on Syracuse’s I-81 viaduct rebuild has come within a fraction of its goal, but the latest numbers show the deeper question is not just who got hired. It is who got the hours, who got the pay and whether the region is turning a once-divisive highway project into lasting jobs for Syracuse residents.

A report from the Urban Jobs Task Force said the Big Table Hiring Initiative had reached 14.9% local participation, just under the 15% workforce target set for the project. The gap is small, but the breakdown matters: local workers accounted for 13.87% of total hours worked and 11.72% of total earnings. That means Syracuse-area residents are getting onto the job sites, but not yet capturing a share of work or pay that matches their share of the workforce.

One area showing stronger progress is apprenticeship. The report said 31.45% of apprentices were residents, a sign that the project is opening a union construction pipeline for people who have often been left out of the trades, including people of color and women. The initiative was designed to give Syracuse residents and other local workers a fair shot at jobs tied to the rebuild, especially people from neighborhoods hit hardest when the original elevated highway cut through the city decades ago.

That history still hangs over the project. The existing viaduct is 1.4 miles long, and state officials say it was built in the 1950s and 1960s, when the 15th Ward was displaced. The $2.25 billion effort is the largest in New York State Department of Transportation history and is intended to replace the elevated roadway with a Community Grid that reconnects downtown Syracuse, the Northside, the Inner Harbor and the Business Loop 81 corridor.

Governor Kathy Hochul has said the local-hire program was one of the first of its kind launched in the nation under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with outreach aimed at residents in Syracuse zip codes and Onondaga Nation Territory. In September 2024, Hochul said the initiative was on track to meet or exceed the 15% goal. Earlier state figures put Contract 1 at 13.57% local hire, Contract 2 at 19.19% and the combined total at 16.38%.

The next test is whether the program can keep lifting local workers beyond the head count. State officials have pointed to outreach centers opened in Syracuse in August 2023, along with partners such as Pathways to Apprenticeship, WorkSmartNY Syracuse Build, CNY Works and Workforce Forward: Syracuse. They have also said the local-hire program includes incentive payments for recruiting residents who face economic hardship or other barriers to employment. Transportation, childcare and access to training remain the practical hurdles that could decide whether the project’s workforce gains hold as phase one moves ahead, including the fifth and final contract awarded in April 2025 and the first new on-ramp that opened in November 2025.