Cost of L.A.-to-Culver City rail line rises by $145 million
Rapid increases in construction costs have ballooned the project's original $640-million budget to $785 million, officials said, and threaten to shorten the line before it reaches Culver City. The project broke ground in August.
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Faced with the nearly 23% increase in costs, members of the
Exposition Construction Authority voted Thursday to ask the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority to provide the extra money. The MTA will
operate the rail system.
Despite evidence that construction costs were rising in recent years,
project officials seriously underestimated the rate of inflation for
labor and materials when they developed the Expo Line's budget in 2005.
In a written report, Richard Thorpe, chief executive of the Expo
authority and the MTA's top construction official, said the budget
assumed that the price of labor and construction materials would
increase 3.5% annually. But construction costs actually rose an average
of more than 11% a year, Thorpe said.
Based on recently negotiated contracts, he wrote that the 8.6-mile first
stage of the line "cannot be completed as originally planned" without
the additional funding from the MTA. Without it, Thorpe said, the line
will end short of Culver City, probably at the La Cienega station.
Before discussion of the cost overruns, Santa Monica Councilwoman Pam
O'Connor, who chairs the MTA board, abruptly left the Expo board
meeting. As she raced to her car outside the county Hall of
Administration, O'Connor said she had a prior engagement out of town and
had to get to the airport.
Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry, who chairs the construction
authority, left right after the overrun discussion and said she had to
get to another event.
In an interview later she said that all members of the Expo board had
been briefed on the budget problems and were aware that the project
faced a substantial deficit.
"We knew," she said
After the meeting, Thorpe defended the projections used to develop the
$640-million budget, saying no one could have foreseen such a rapid rise
in construction costs.
His comments echoed those of MTA Chief Executive Roger Snoble, who said
the cost of steel, concrete and other materials has increased
dramatically in recent years.
If the MTA provides the additional money to the Expo Line, Snoble
acknowledged, it will come at the expense of future rail projects the
agency is considering. The MTA board could take up the issue at its
meeting late this month.
The public disclosure of the cost increases comes at a critical time for
the Expo project. The construction authority cannot lay tracks across
intersections along the route without approval from the California
Public Utilities Commission.
The PUC has scheduled back-to-back hearings next week on whether the
design of the line is safe, particularly where it would pass Dorsey High
School.
Community activists say the trains cannot be operated safely at street
level through the intersection of Exposition Boulevard and Farmdale
Avenue, where students would have to cross the tracks. Expo authority
officials have insisted at community meetings and in legal papers filed
with the PUC that running the trains by the school at street level is
safe. They are expected to defend that position at a PUC hearing Tuesday
in Culver City.
Bowing to mounting community concern, the Expo board voted Thursday to
ask Thorpe to come back next month with an analysis of the cost of
building a pedestrian crossing over the tracks, constructing a
pedestrian tunnel under them or elevating them as they pass Dorsey. The
new price tag does not include the cost of any of those options. Current
plans call for the line to begin rising just west of Dorsey to reach an
elevated station at La Brea Avenue.
Opponents of the present design for the Farmdale/Exposition intersection
got a boost Thursday when Los Angeles school board member Marguerite
Poindexter LaMotte introduced a motion opposing "any at-grade design of
the Expo Light Rail Line along streets in close proximity to school
sites."
The school district's safety committee took no stand on the motion,
which is expected to go before the full board at its next meeting, Nov.
13.
Although the epicenter of the dispute is the crossing near Dorsey, the
line would also pass within 100 feet of four other schools.
Until recent weeks, the Expo authority assumed L.A. Unified would go
along with its plans. For the most part, mid-level school safety
managers had presumed that street-level train crossings were inevitable.
They had focused instead on working out smaller measures to enhance
safety.
LaMotte said she wasn't aware of the potential risk until she attended a
public meeting last month at Dorsey.
She reassured Expo Line critics Thursday: "I can talk pretty strongly
and pretty loudly and you have my support. And I don't intend to back
off."