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Two former allies of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were convicted of joining a partisan plot to create crippling traffic near the George Washington Bridge as punishment for a local mayor who wouldn’t support the governor’s 2013 re-election.

The political leaders at odds in New Jersey’s ongoing transportation funding crisis are talking again for the first time since mid-August.

With New Jersey’s road construction shutdown having hit the 40-day mark on Aug. 17 and no end to the budget impasse between Republican Gov. Chris Christie and the Democratic-dominated Legislature, Christie issued an executive order that commanded the state treasurer to free funds to cover “essential” road and rail work and those which require a state match of federal dollars.

New Jersey’s Transportation Trust Fund lost its ability to borrow money on July 1. Road construction in the Garden State has been shut down for nearly four weeks. But Republican Gov. Chris Christie said Aug. 2 that he’s hopeful he can reach an agreement with the Democratic-controlled Legislature to end the transportation crisis soon.

The battle over transportation funding in New Jersey that has shut down road projects in the state took another turn July 11 when Senate President Stephen Sweeney offered an olive branch to his nemesis, Gov. Chris Christie.

Not long before 1 a.m. on June 28, New Jersey’s Assembly dominated by Democrats turned its back on a package that paired a fuel-tax increase with a phase-out of the estate tax and approved a deal with Republican Gov. Chris Christie that balances the fuel-tax rise with a 1% decrease in the state’s sales tax by 2018.