DAAR Engineering also confirmed Thursday that it had been told to stop its $2.8 million project.

Ramesh Kapur, of Kapur & Associates in Milwaukee, would not reveal the size of his firm's contract but said no employees are affected by the hold order, which he described as "not that unusual."

"All they (the state) said was to put it on hold and we said ‘OK." It happens a lot with government contracts, many projects where they say stop for the time being until we work things out," he said.

Marc Magliari, a spokesman for Amtrak, said the rail company "will certainly review the latest directive from the state and take appropriate action."

The extent of Amtrak's participation has been in planning expansion of the Hiawatha line and in assisting the state DOT with grant applications and the like, Magliari said. He said so far there have been "no hires" related to the project, but was not familiar with the size of any existing contract.

Mayors support move

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said Thursday he thought it was appropriate to "pause" the project, while a new administration prepares to take office.