The Metropolitan Transit Authority board of directors on Wednesday unanimously approved a $1.46 billion contract for four new light rail lines, which would add 20 miles to its lone seven-mile line along Main Street.
Under the contract, which came after almost a year of negotiations, Parsons Transportation Group is responsible for designing, building, operating and maintaining the new East End, Southeast, North and Uptown lines at an average cost of $73 million a mile. Metro has said the lines will be complete by 2012.
A fifth rail line, the University line, and an intermodal terminal near downtown still are planned, but are not included in the contract.
Metro officials said the agency intends to spend $632 million on the initial phase of the project, primarily on the East End line along Harrisburg as it is further along in the planning than the others.
“Today is obviously a very significant milestone in our building of the Metro Solutions program,” board Chairman David Wolff said moments before the vote. “Our objective is to improve transit in Houston.”
It would have been nice, of course, if the process that had gotten us here had been more open. Maybe this time that lesson will sink in. Be that as it may, after all this time I’m just glad we finally got here.
The contract includes $50 million in incentives for Parsons and the other contractors to complete the project early. Parsons and Veolia Transportation, which operates systems in 150 cities in the United States and Canada, will team up as the operations and maintenance contractor. Parsons also will be responsible for any design defects for five years after completion of the rail lines.
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Jeff Moseley, president of the Greater Houston Partnership, told the Metro board that Houston’s business community was pleased with the inclusion of community input to help determine whether incentives should be awarded.
Under the contract, the community and Metro leaders will “score” contractors on their ability to maintain physical access to neighborhoods and businesses during construction of the light rail expansion.
At least they learned that much from the Main Street experience. Progress!
Construction on the initial phase of the project likely will begin no earlier than June, a Metro spokesman said.
After all the delays, roadblocks, and do-overs, I’ll say again that I’m just glad we’ve finally cleared this hurdle and can even talk about a start date for construction. Now let’s make sure it doesn’t start slipping so that 2012 completion goal remains plausible.