Here’s the email that went out today from Habib Balian, the CEO of the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, the independent agency that is overseeing the building of the 11.5-mile light rail line from the current Gold Line terminus in Pasadena to the Azusa/Glendora border.
The Foothill Extension is funded by Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase approved by Los Angeles County voters in 2008. When the line is complete, the Construction Authority will turn it over to Metro, which will operate the line.
Here is Habib’s email:
This morning, the Construction Authority received proposals for the Pasadena to Azusa Foothill Extension Phase 2A Alignment contract. This is a major milestone in our process to select a design-builder to complete final design and construction of the 11.5 miles of track, stations, crossings, systems, maintenance facility, and more.
The three proposals were all in by 9:00 a.m. this morning, hours ahead of the deadline. Each proposal will now go through a significant evaluation process, including review by multiple technical evaluation committees.
Proposals will be evaluated on a number of criteria, and will result in an award to the team providing the “best value.” This methodology assures the Authority will hire the team that not only provides an efficiently-priced bid, but also proposes the best personnel and processes for delivering a high-quality project on time and on budget.
We feel confident that the three teams competing for the work each afford world-class experience and know-how. It will certainly make selecting a winner challenging. But that is exactly what we want for such a significant regional project.
As a reminder, the three design-build teams short-listed last year are (in alpha order): (1) Foothill Transit Constructors, a Kiewit-Parsons Joint Venture; (2) Shimmick/URS/Stacy and Witbeck Joint Venture; and (3) Skanska/Balfour Beatty Joint Venture.
I look forward to keeping you updated on our progress, as we move closer to April’s planned contract award and start of work on this highly anticipated project.
Categories: Projects
“Express Service” as was experimented with at one point on the Metro Gold Line is a very dificult proposition on any of Metro’s Rail lines. These lines are basically two lane roads with one lane in each direction and no room or provision for passing. Any “Express” train (express meaning it’s not making all station stops since all trains travel at the same rated speeds) will by default be confined by having to follow the train in front of it (which is stopping at all stops).
Regardless of whether your trip takes X minutes, or X plus 10 minutes, the real savings is what you can do with your time on the train. On the train you can focus your attention on a litaney of tasks (including sleeping) that you can not do behind the wheel of a car. This ability to use the time in whatever you consider a constructive manner, is how you turn your time on the train into Gold, with or without the ‘Express’.
And if your wondering why the crossovers (where trains can change from one track to another) can not be used for passing, it is because they are too far apart. The cross overs are there for a varielty of reasons, including emergency single tracking (using only one track in both directions between two crossovers). However, as you are aware from any time Metro has had to single track during the commute hours, single tracking is not condusive to staying on the published schedule for peak hour service.
I agree with the first comment.As the gold line extends in length,I would like to see the return of expresss service as well.
Of course,we all know that express service was cut quite some time ago due to various reasons,I would assume low ridership,or budget cuts,etc..
The gold line,in my opinion runs great,I use it daily,and I am sure looking forward to the completion of this segment.
EXPRESS survice again