METRO signs light rail contract

Contract includes 4 new lines

Steve Hawley, Mar 05, 09.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) signed a contract yesterday with Parsons Transportation Group to build the four light rail lines, as noted by Christof Spieler in Intermodality. According to METRO, the contract is worth $1.4645 billion and will create 60,000 jobs before the 20-mile extensions are complete. The contract includes the North, Southeast, East End, and Uptown lines, while the University line will be the subject of a separate contract.

Spieler points out a number of interesting items:

This is a design-build-operate contract. That’s a relatively new way of doing business. ... That is intended to eliminate finger pointing — the builder can’t blame problems on the designer, for example — and to lead to a more efficient design that takes the construction process into account.

The cost for these four lines (20 miles) is $1.46 billion. That’s $113 million less than was projected last August, but it’s also a reflection of how much construction costs have gone up in the last 5 years: the Main Street Line cost $45 million a mile; these lines will cost $73 [million per mile].

The contract includes a light rail only overpass on Harrisburg, not the road+rail underpass the neighborhood wants. But I wouldn’t consider that a done deal.

The new light rail vehicles (103 of them) won’t be the same as the 18 we have already. The current ones, made by Siemens, have 4 doors on each side and are 70% low floor — the seats at both ends are two steps up from the rest. The new ones will be 100% low floor, with 6 doors on each side. That will handles crowds at stations better, and it also leaves more room for bikes and strollers (though there’s no mention of bike racks on board). These will be the first 100% low floor light rail vehicles operating in the United States. ... The first 19 cars will be for the Main Street Line, to relieve congestion; the existing trains will remain in service.

Spieler also believes that “the new contract will include operation of the Main Street Line as well as the new lines.”

The METRO blog and Houston Chronicle provide additional coverage.