A $299-million contract to purchase 78 new light rail vehicles from Kinkisharyo International, LLC, was approved Monday afternoon by the Metro Board of Directors on a 8 to 1 vote.
The approval is pending resolution of two protests filed with Metro by firms that did not win the bid as well as no negative responses from the Federal Transit Administration before the protests are resolved.
The contract also includes four options to buy another 157 light rail vehicles for $591 million for a total contract value of $890 million for 235 new rail cars. Metro staff had recommended Kinkisharyo after spending the past year evaluating bids. (Renderings of the new cars are above and after the jump).
Board Member Jose Huizar voted against the contract and Board Member Richard Katz abstained. Members Gloria Molina and Mark Ridley-Thomas were absent and Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa could not participate in the discussion due to a conflict of interest.
Metro CEO Art Leahy opened the special Board meeting by saying that agency has fallen several years behind its procurement of new rail light rail vehicles and that the agency does not have enough vehicles at this time to operate the second phase of the Expo Line and the Gold Line Foothill Extension. Both projects are under construction and could be complete by 2015.
An effort to buy 100 new rail cars ended in late 2009 when a potential deal with another manufacturer fell apart.
Under the new contract with Kinkisharyo, 28 of the new rail cars are scheduled to be delivered by 2015 and a total of 62 by May 2016. If the four options are fulfilled, the delivery of the 235 total rail cars would be complete by Feb. 2020.
The new rail cars will also replace 69 aging vehicles currently in use on the Blue Line.
Kinkisharyo International, LLC, is based in Massachusetts and is a subsidiary of Kinki Sharyo Company of Osaka, Japan. The firm, according to Metro staff, has been awarded 15 contracts in the U.S. to build 684 light rail vehicles, including recent contracts to supply rail lines in Phoenix, Dallas and Seattle.
The other two firms — Siemens Industry, Inc., and CAF USA, Inc. — bid on the contract and both filed protests with Metro after agency staff recommended Kinkisharyo. Siemens officials and many members of the public who testified to the Board said that the Siemens bid would create more U.S. jobs.
Using federal guidelines to evaluate the bids, Metro staff concluded that the Kinkisharyo bid would create about $138.8 million in U.S. job value and the Siemens bid would create about $140.6 million. Current federal rules prohibit local transit agencies from considering local job creation in rail car contracts — the rules are intended to prevent local transit agencies from potentially using federal funds to take jobs from other c
ities in the U.S.
Metro is planning to secure $240 million in federal funds to help pay for the new rail cars.
Metro staff also concluded that:
•Kinkisharyo presents the lowest risk to the delivery schedule of the new light rail cars.
•Kinkisharyo offers the best technical proposal for all rail car systems, overall car design and integration.
•Kinkisharyo has the best program management team by experience and resource capability in the U.S.
•Kinkisharyo will create a high value of new U.S. jobs, and will move manufacturing of option vehicle car shells to the U.S.
@IT Guy in Irvine
Transit Agencies around the globe have been documenting travel patterns of it users well before the implementation of smart cards into their systems. The data from “TAP out”‘s would be useful but it is not necessary in the gathering of such information.
I’d sure like to see overhead parcel storage. Looks like there’s plenty of room for it. Some Big Blue Buses have this and it is very useful for getting carry-on stuff out of the way.
@Mospaeda
Think for a moment how that is possible. We do not have GPS chips implanted into us. We do not have big brother agents coming up to us at every bus stop or train station asking for our ID and where we are going like the Soviet Union. We do not have magical laser beams, instant satellite hookups or Hollywood like facial recognition technology linked up to a federal database to document John Doe living in Arcadia is using public transit to go to his place of work in Pasadena. Even if it were at all possible, Metro does not have the financial or labor resources to do so.
Yes it is true it can be done without smart cards, but the point I was making is that unless there is some sort of data collection happening at the point of destination, it is not possible for Metro to figure out real transit patterns at a level of anonymity. A good example is how the DC Metro used a ticket-in and ticket-out collection system before introduction of smart cards.
This comment is regarding the design of the the LRT. Looking at the last image, I am excited to see that the two seats by the doors can fold up – similar to the same seats in the metros of Paris that automatically fold up when no one is sitting on it. It just makes sense. It comes in handy when the train car starts getting full. People who are currently sitting in those seats would stand up to make room for more people to board. At least, that is the etiquette in Paris. I have a feeling in L.A., it will be folded up for different reasons (i.e. to make room for wheelchairs, bikes, strollers, and people with luggage). I just hope there will be a sign by those seats to let passengers know that those seats can fold up.
Anyhow, this is still a step in the right direction for the L.A. metro.