Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Getting a new start┬áA new light rail transit segment, the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension, links historic areas of Los Angeles, Gary Toushek learns. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), with an operating budget of $3.4 billion per year, serves as transportation planner, coordinator, designer, builder and operator for one of the largest counties in the US, with more than 9.6 million peopleÔÇönearly one-third of CaliforniaÔÇÖs residents.  Dennis Mori, executive officer, directs the project management for MetroÔÇÖs Construction Division. ÔÇ£With help from our planning and operations divisions, we implement the planning and make sure that we can engineer, construct and deliver transit projects that come in on time and under budget; which are safe and reliable for our passengers.ÔÇØ┬áMori has had several responsibilities, including delivering projects like the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension, with a budget of $898 million.With 13 passenger stations on its northern route, the Metro Gold Line has now been extended south and east with another eight stations on a six-mile alignment from the downtown Union Station, MetroÔÇÖs major public transit terminal, where surface light rail, underground heavy rail, regional commuter rail (MetroLink) and interstate rail (Amtrak) intersect in a hub with the largest compressed natural gas bus fleet in the US. Los Angeles County started building its light rail and heavy rail system in the 1980s, and the first light rail line was open in 1990. Compared to some other large metropolitan transit systems in the US, Metro introduced rail relatively late. Its system includes the two modes of rail: heavy rail for higher-speed, grade-separated, underground subway trains that travel through tunnels; and light rail for smaller numbers of passengers, operating primarily on dedicated rail right-of-way and street-running portions. The Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension project is light rail and qualified as a federal New Starts Program project, so the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) contributed one-half of the cost (in June 2004), and construction began in July 2004. The FTA Full-Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) revenue operations date is December 31, 2009, and since the extension is 97 percent complete, itÔÇÖs about six months ahead of schedule. When the six-mile project is complete in mid-summer, the Metro system will have a total of 79 miles of rail.The design-build contractor for this extension is the Eastside Light Rail Transit Constructors, a joint venture partnership between URS Washington Division and Obayashi Corporation. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve had an excellent partnering relationship,ÔÇØ says Mori. ÔÇ£We awarded a $600 million contract in June 2004, and currently we have only $15 million in change orders and no outstanding claims. Since we had to build tunnels and underground stations, we used a hybrid contracting delivery method awarding a combined contract consisting of design-bid-build for the underground section and design-build for the remainder of the stations, the civil, electrical, mechanical, communications and systems work.ÔÇØ The safety record for the contracting of the project to date is nearly four million safe work hours with no lost-time incidents, which means there was not a single construction accident requiring any worker to be off the job for an entire day. From Union Station, the extension runs south through the cityÔÇÖs Little Tokyo/Arts District, then east over the Los Angeles River to Boyle Heights, then into the East LA portion of Los Angeles County. There are two underground stations and six stations at grade. The six-mile route includes a portion of track that crosses a freeway with an aerial configuration and 1.7 miles of twin-bored subway tunnels. Since the various neighborhoods where these stations are located are ethnically diverse with their own cultural history, each station was designed by an artist or architect chosen for his or her theme relating to the neighborhood. The 1.7 miles of twin-bored tunnels for the two subway stations under Boyle Heights were done by Traylor Brothers, specialists in geotechnical tunneling projects. The construction for tunneling was not the disruptive influence it often tends to be in major urban centers, on either businesses or residences in the respective neighborhoods. ÔÇ£We used earth pressure balance tunneling machines,ÔÇØ Mori says, ÔÇ£and there was no surface settlement or damage along the entire alignment. The first underground station was also used as an access shaft to lower the boring machines. We used an enhanced cut-and-cover method of operation. ÔÇ£The shaft at 1st/Boyle that was excavated for the boring machines is the location of the underground station. The excavation was about 60 feet wide, 60 feet deep and about 450 feet long, creating a lot of construction activity in the area, typical of any cut-and-cover construction operation. We used street closures coordinated with the city to minimize the duration for which the surface was disrupted. We also used concrete decking over the excavation, which allowed traffic to travel over the top of the ongoing construction during tunneling. There were a few businesses and residences that did complain about disruptions, but it was relatively minimal.ÔÇØMori credits much of the projectÔÇÖs success to the community relations effort that was managed by Yvette Rapose, Metro Community Relations Manager. A Construction Impact Mitigation Program was created, whereby staff members worked as liaisons among the project management team, the contractor, and the community, to find ways to lessen the impacts of ongoing construction. Meetings and notices alerted pertinent neighborhoods to upcoming construction and advised on alternate routes for traffic and parking. Marketing was offered for businesses experiencing slower than normal customer traffic.This is MoriÔÇÖs second major project funded by the FTAÔÇÖs New Starts Program to be completed on time and within budget; the Metro Red Line heavy rail subway from downtown LA to North Hollywood, was a $1.3 billion project that opened in June 2000.ÔÇ£With the challenge of all major urban transit agencies in the US trying to acquire federal funding, including President ObamaÔÇÖs stimulus money, we feel proud of our delivery of these projects. I think we were successful in this project because of our intensive planning process. When the extension was announced, there was a tremendous amount of community outreach, and a review advisory committee was created, comprised of residential, business and other community leaders, meeting on a monthly basis since 2001 who were kept apprised of our progress during the planning and construction phases. ItÔÇÖs also been the forum for public comments to allow anyone to come in and voice their concerns. We have tried to come up with solutions and report back in a timely manner on what weÔÇÖve done to address those concerns. This open communication has worked well in being responsive to the community.ÔÇØ  ÔÇô Editorial research by Richard Halfhide