Link Light Rail Tops the List for Budget, Complexity and Ambition

Transportation is always an issue in Washington State, whether people are talking about congestion, funding or technical problems. This year various agencies have experienced all three.

Easily one of the most wide ranging transportation projects in the nation, Seattle's central link light rail is well under way with five major contracts running simultaneously.

With four of the five major contracts coming in at six percent under the estimate, Sound Transit project managers are hoping to pull off an economic and engineering triumph at the same time. Construction cost of this phase of the project is estimated at about $1.1 billion, but unless problems develop, costs should be considerably lower.

The most technically difficult part of Sound Transit's endeavor is boring the elevator access that will carry passengers down to the station under Beacon Hill and a 4,300 foot tunnel that connects the Rainier Valley and the industrial area just south of downtown Seattle. Difficult soil conditions include groundwater and three-foot deep pockets of sand.

Right now prime contractor Obiyashi is digging 160-ft. deep elevator shafts that will eventually bring passengers down to the rail station. To deal with the unstable soils, Obiyashi is using a slurry wall to support the perimeter of the shafts. Then it will inject concrete into the wall, displacing the slurry.

When tunnel boring starts this summer, it will be the deepest ever attempted in glacial till in North America, according to Sound Transit. Obiyashi will be using SEM, or "sequential excavation mining technique". Displacing small amounts of earth at a time will help control the excavation, and also possible disruption of the urbanized area on the surface.

Crews are now using the cut and cover method elsewhere on Beacon Hill to create the space for the tunnel-boring machine to enter. Due to arrive in June, it is being built in Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Ltd.

Continuing on the route south, riders will travel through Seattle's Rainier Valley, one of the most economically depressed areas of the city. There RCI Herzog is working on relocating utilities, burying them underground and building the track down the center of the street. "As far as community impact goes, this is the most challenging part of the project," said Geoff Patrick, Sound Transit, media spokesperson. Local merchants have long voiced resentment about the project; fearing traffic congestion will deter customers and force businesses to relocate. Traffic and utility shutoffs are also affecting local residents.

The final phase of the central link was recently awarded to PCL Construction Services Inc., which will build a five-mile elevated track from the Rainier Valley to Tukwila. The contract also includes an option to continue the track 1.4 miles to Sea-Tac International Airport.

Beatty Balfour is charge of what is probably the biggest remodel in Seattle as it upgrades the existing bus tunnel for light rail use. A stub tunnel, which will provide a place for the trains to turn around is the first order of business and is now under construction at 8th and Pine. Work calls for upgrading the electrical and mechanical systems, improving fire safety and installing a communication and signaling system.

While excavating for a bridge that will run over the Duwamish River as part of the project, contractors ran into an archeological site. It is now being investigated, with the remnants preserved. "We expect to be finished well before it has an impact on the construction schedule," Patrick said.

Modern Needs Meet Antiquity, Again

Sound Transit wasn't the only agency to run into an ancient Native American Village, during construction. Washington State's effort to build bridges for the future is also digging up the past.

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State transportation officials were surprised to find hundreds of burial remains and artifacts while constructing a graving dock near Port Angeles, Wash. for the repairs on the east half of the Hood Canal Bridge. A similar find is expected if work proceeds on replacing the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, which crosses Lake Washington between Seattle and Bellevue.

"Nobody knew the significance of what we going to find (at the graving dock site), not even the tribe," said Linda Mullen, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Fifteen months and $58 million into the project, work halted at the graving dock location last December. In February, a six-member expert panel reviewed three options for moving the project forward:

Locate a new graving dock site and either renegotiate the current general contracting agreement

Rebid the pontoon and anchor construction portion of the contract

Find a new general contractor and leave the process of selecting a new site in the firm's hand.

In an effort to curb costs and meet a 2008 deadline, WSDOT is simultaneously working on the first two suggestions. Eric Soderquist, project director for the Hood Canal Bridge team, says, "The goal right now is to concurrently begin negotiations with the contractor first to build anchors, to prepare for negotiations on the overall re-pricing of the contract and begin work on new contract documents in case any portion of the negotiations fail."

Transportation officials are studying three potential dry dock sites -Mats Mats Bay north of Port Hadlock, Port of Everett South Terminal and a combination of existing Puget Sound dry dock facilities proposed by FCB Facilities Team-until mid-summer when a final location will be chosen. Work has also begun on developing new graving dock concepts at the Port Ludlow Quarry and the Port of Everett and refining concepts for building pontoons at existing facilities in Tacoma and Seattle.

Talks with project general contractor Kiewit-General, a Port Angeles, Wash.-based joint venture of Kiewit Pacific Co. and General Construction Co., began in mid-April.

In light of the $238 million Hood Canal projects archeological finds, the Duwamish Tribe is wondering what will happen when construction begins on one of the nation's oldest floating bridges, State Route 520.

The state has yet to finish a draft environmental impact statement, but talks with the tribe about potential sacred land are already underway. Design options under consideration include a 4-lane or 6-lane bridge to replace the current six-mile span, which opened in 1963. The 4-lane option would cost from $1.7 to $2 billion and adding two additional lanes would up the price to between $2.6 and $2.9 billion. Construction is expected to be completed by 2020. The final environmental impact statement will be finished near the end of 2005 and construction is expected to begin in 2009.

Monorail Project Faces Legal, Funding Challenges

After months of negotiations, the Seattle Monorail Project board has yet to sign an agreement for the construction of the city's 14-mile Green Line. But despite whispers about the project's sole bidder being $200 million over costs, monorail officials say negotiations with Cascadia Monorail, a 29-company consortium headed by Washington Group International, Fluor and Hitachi, will continue until an agreement is reached.

"We'll negotiate as long as it takes," says Natasha Jones, spokeswoman for the Seattle Monorail Project. As of mid-April, no agreement had been signed.

A previous project timeline set the end of 2004 as the deadline for an agreement to be signed, with construction to begin this year and the railway system to be operations in 2009. Jones and Cascadia representatives are tight-lipped about the project being over bid and which portions of the design are adding up to more than the $1.5 billion budget approved by voters.

In the absence of a construction contract, a previous bidder is tempting Seattleites with a sleek, relatively unobtrusive model with a $1.35 billion price tag. Team Monorail, a 19-member team led by Bombardier Transit Corp. withdrew its bid last fall over the monorail board's tough liability standards and is now asking for a do-over.

"We are suggesting that (Seattle Monorail Project) re-visit the current procurement, reissue or modify the (request for proposal) with the changes we are suggesting, and invite Cascadia and Team Monorail to submit proposals," wrote Denis Bouvette, vice president, Total Transit Systems Division, Bombardier in a Jan. 14 letter to the monorail board.

But the monorail board shrugged off Team Monorail's request and instead is moving forward with considering revenue-generating options such as tourist and celebration trains. The specialty trains would be available in off-peak commuting hours for a premium price.

Tourists now spend about $13 for a view from the top at the Space Needle and from $17 to $32 to board a harbor cruise. The board is hoping to lure visitors to the new rail system by promising a comfy ride and 360-degree views.

The trains may feature flat-screen televisions, movies, speakers, restrooms and chairs that face the windows and could help the monorail break even by 2020 without tax subsidies. While the tourist trains would run between peak commuting times, the celebration trains would be rented out for blocks of time to host birthdays, wedding receptions or other parties.

While monorail officials and Cascadia continue negotiations, the state Legislature is contemplating a solution to the project's financial woes. Washington lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow the Seattle Monorail Project to sell bonds that last 40 years or longer if the Internal Revenue Service permits. When voters approved the line in 2002, original finance plans called for 30-year bonds. Construction is paid for with a car-tab tax of $140 per $10,000 of vehicle value.