Lynx Blue Line (South Corridor)

[archiham04]

Was the $33M overrun last year before or after construction started?

[Miesian Corners]

Ms Tara says they are the same parent company and I believe EVERYTHING she says.

Do you mean Sassy Servatius?

You know what's really bad? WBTV news interveiwed HER, instead of anyone directly connected to CATS or Parsons about this. Talk about crappy journalism.

[monsoon]

Was the $33M overrun last year before or after construction started?

It was after construction started.

[uptownliving]

The thing that really zapped CATS on the South LRT is the Station Finishes contract which only had 1 bidder and came in 90% over budget. CATS tried to get other contracters to bid on the project, but they refused saying that they had too much work on their plate already. Who came up with the estimate that was 90% short of reality? Parsons Transportation Group. In fact, CATS thought that the Parsons estimate was low and so they padded the budget by 25%...but even then the bid came in 90% over that. Keep in mind this all happened a year ago just after Katrina during all of that hysteria. The Station Finishes contract is what caused CATS to have to delay construction a couple months and take out some things to meet the Fed alloted budget.

I know that in the public realm this thing is like dynamite and is wreaking havoc on the public trust...but in the end this thing is going to come in at 4%-6% over budget. In the scheme of things that isnt really that bad.

[monsoon]

That just means that CATS under estimated this project since they blew all of their contigency on just one contract. Parson's role in these failures has not beem made public yet but in any case it is irrelevant. It was the CATS and city management that choose to use them and failed to supervise them, that is if what is being said about them is actually true. That has yet to be determined.

I expect this will be a major platform of the county council election this fall from those who are going to call to end the transit line and taxes to support it. They are going to find a lot of sympathetic ears in the multitudes of this county that have been forced to pay for a lot of projects they don't want and never use. LRT is going to become the unfortunate whipping boy for all of that unless the city moves quickly to restore confidence in the project. If McCroy has any bite to his loud barking, he will move to deal with Tober and Syfert as he said he would when the FTA delays that I spoke about, occured.

[uptownliving]

What I think the Republicans (Bill James, Jim Puckett) who are talking about ending the 1/2 cent sales tax forget is that a lot of that money goes to buses. If the 1/2 cent sales tax is abolished...then you will see all of the succussful Express Routes (such as 77X) disappear, unless of course Huntersville and all the other towns would be willing to raise their property tax to cover the subsidie. The money has to come from somewhere to make the buses run. The Express Routes serve mostly Republican areas of the county. That is something that I think those politicians will have to consider.

[Charlotte_native]

I expect this will be a major platform of the county council election this fall from those who are going to call to end the transit line and taxes to support it. They are going to find a lot of sympathetic ears in the multitudes of this county that have been forced to pay for a lot of projects they don't want and never use. LRT is going to become the unfortunate whipping boy for all of that unless the city moves quickly to restore confidence in the project. If McCroy has any bite to his loud barking, he will move to deal with Tober and Syfert as he said he would when the FTA delays that I spoke about, occured.

What bugs me about this: the anti-light rail, pro-roads folks are hoppin' mad, as if road projects EVER come in on budget or on-time. Give this project as much lattitude for mistakes and over-runs as our ever growing asphalt ribbons.

On a happy note: saw this running up and down the rails in SouthEnd yesterday (it was amazingly silent...)

What I think the Republicans (Bill James, Jim Puckett) who are talking about ending the 1/2 cent sales tax forget is that a lot of that money goes to buses. If the 1/2 cent sales tax is abolished...then you will see all of the succussful Express Routes (such as 77X) disappear, unless of course Huntersville and all the other towns would be willing to raise their property tax to cover the subsidie. The money has to come from somewhere to make the buses run. The Express Routes serve mostly Republican areas of the county. That is something that I think those politicians will have to consider.

They won't care, crying about taxes is all that gets them elected. No one considers what those taxes pay for and whether they need or use those services.

[monsoon]

They are looking to take over a majority on the county council and this will be one of the platforms they use to do it. The other are all of the illegals in the county but that is for a different topic.

[monsoon]

More bad press about the South LRT project. Nothing really new here except that Tober apparently offered to fall on his sword but Syfert patted on the head and said that its all OK. It can't be making the people happy.

[uptownliving]

I posted about Tober offering to resign yesterday. I guess nobody saw that post. I think that Syfert is between a rock and a hard place with regards to Tober. He is overseeing the South LRT construction which is on a tight and hard deadline and where all the construction contracts have long been signed. Firing Tober, or accepting his resignation will not make the South LRT any cheaper to build or get it built any faster. If Syfert had the luxury of being able to stop construction on the South LRT and do a nationwide search for his replacement, then she would have probably done that. However stoping construction on the South LRT is not a smart move at this point. If they stop construction then they risk losing the Fed Money. Personally I don't think that Tober is incompetent...he is the person that got us the Full Funding Grant Agreement in the first place...no easy feat...just look to our neighbors in the Triangle to see how it could have turned out here.

[monsoon]

..... Personally I don't think that Tober is incompetent...he is the person that got us the Full Funding Grant Agreement in the first place...no easy feat...just look to our neighbors in the Triangle to see how it could have turned out here.

If the South LRT had been evaluated under the same terms as that of the TTA project it would have failed as well. Neither project has the cost effectiveness ratings to be approve under the rules today.

If nobody is reading your posts, well, I can't help that. My post was about the bad press that was printed today's paper though tober was the subject of that article. You should take some of your own medicine.

[uptownliving]

If the South LRT had been evaluated under the same terms as that of the TTA project it would have failed as well. Neither project has the cost effectiveness ratings to be approve under the rules today.

The TTA project got started before we even passed the 1/2 cent sales tax in Meck Co. They were having the same ridership estimate problems with the FTA that CATS was having. The difference was that CATS was able to get their ridership estimates resolved with the FTA before the rules had changed. If the TTA had their act together they too could have gotten their estimates right with the FTA and gotten approved under the old rules. Unfortunatly that is not what happened.

[monsoon]

Well the TTA project was vastly more complicated than the South LRT, as they were building a line that is 3x the length of the South LRT, involved new technology trains, involved multiple governments, and was subject to a completely different structure given the state created the TTA. There really isn't any comparison to what is going on there vs Charlotte except to say the projects were evaluated under different rules. The fact the TTA system may not be built, isn't any justification to excuse Tober's cost overruns and schedule slips on the South LRT and it it irrelevant to the subject at hand.

It's my guess that Tober is being saved to take the fall later.

[uptownliving]

There were public statements made by Mayor Pro Tem Susan Burgess and Council Memeber Mitchell yesterday on News14 saying they are glad that Tober is staying on board. Reading the tea leaves I don't think that Tober is being saved to take the fall later. I think that if Tober leaves it will be on his own terms.

[uptownliving]

Personally I think that if people are looking for someone to blame for this mess they should look no further than the Charlotte City Council. Every single contract that CATS signed from the very begining design when Parson Transportation Group was hired to the Station Finishes contract for Archer Western....the City Council reviewed and approved every single one of them. If there were cost overruns that required change orders then City Council reviewed and approved every one of those too. If they had any concerns or issues then that was the time to bring it up. For some council members to feign shock and surprise that one of the contracts that they approved didn't quite work out as suspected...then in my opinion they only have themselves to blame. They were the ones that approved the contract. The buck stops at the City Council.

[monsoon]

John Locke is a think tank that is based in Raleigh which seems to have the ears of many politicians in this state. I have debated the need for public transit with their representative on NPR in the past. They of course are having a field day with these failures as they contend that public transit is a black hole where promises are made that are never kept and the public would be better served by investing in highways. Of course they are using Tober's failures as vindication of their points.

Read about it in their blog.

"This rejection from the FTA had to come as a shock to both Tober and city officials who counted on Tober to find a way to get CATS out from underneath a project that has a deadline of December 31, 2007 for completion, but is now only 55 to 60 percent finished after almost four years of work. This is a huge reversal for Tober."

[Charlotte_native]

I ask, once again, whether anyone can list a road project that has come in on budget or on-time. Shouldn't we guage this project with the same criteria? How far over budget is 485? Is it on time (I don't really know).

Public projects ALWAYS cost more and take longer.

As for the Locke Foundation and anyone like them, they would be upset if this were under budget.

[uptownliving]

I read the blog and I agree with his statement of actions needed on CATS part. Releasing Tober's e-mails and having an outside agency review of the other transit lines. Incidentily those 2 things are in the process of happening anyways.

I do think that this statement of theirs is misleading:

...CATS out from underneath a project that has a deadline of December 31, 2007 for completion, but is now only 55 to 60 percent finished after almost four years of work...

They state the percentage of construction that is complete and then say there has been 4 years of work. I don't want anyone thinking this thing has been under construction for 4 years...the reality is that it started just over a year ago.

[Charlotte_native]

John Locke is a think tank that is based in Raleigh which seems to have the ears of many politicians in this state.

Lets call "think tanks" what they really are, political arms of political parties that create propaganda. I try not to pay attention to any of these folks. They cherry pick stats and info to prove points based on party platfrom. John Locke Foudation is unabashedly conservative and will find ways to make any public project look like a blunder no matter what it is. Like all "think tanks" supported by political leaning directors, they suit up as scientists, researchers, and experts only to prove the outcome they have already decided. If they ran numbers and found that light rail made sense they would never tell you.

I am not saying there aren't problems, there are plenty, but there will never be a mindset change with these kind of people no matter if our rail system is successfull or not.

[uptownliving]

I ask, once again, whether anyone can list a road project that has come in on budget or on-time. Shouldn't we guage this project with the same criteria? How far over budget is 485? Is it on time (I don't really know).

Public projects ALWAYS cost more and take longer.

As for the Locke Foundation and anyone like them, they would be upset if this were under budget.

485 is way over budget and continues to be delayed. I think construction started on 485 back almost 20 years ago. Design work on it goes back even further. To be fair John Locke has hounded NCDOT for their bad job of road building.

[Charlotte_native]

485 is way over budget and continues to be delayed. I think construction started on 485 back almost 20 years ago. Design work on it goes back even further. To be fair John Locke has hounded NCDOT for their bad job of road building.

I actually wasn't referring so much to them in the 485 vs. Light Rail comparison as I am Charlotte's general public, city council, the media, etc. Everyone has been gunning to prove light rail is a bad idea from the beginning, yet 485 seems to get somewhat of a pass. I don't hear the suburbanites complaining about its' costs and timing since they can now run their Yukons and 80 MPH from 77 to Mint Hill. The cost seems to be fine though over budget.

[monsoon]

I ask, once again, whether anyone can list a road project that has come in on budget or on-time. Shouldn't we guage this project with the same criteria? How far over budget is 485? Is it on time (I don't really know).

I don't disagree with you at all, but unfortunately the public does not guage projects like this to the same standards they have for roads. Everybody in this area drives, but relatively few will be in the position to ride the train. It's this difference that CATS officials have to understand and manage and definately don't go over the budget because if you do, the critics are going to open fire as they are now. The problem is worsened byt the fact there is very little money made available for projects such as this and because of that, getting the money is a highly political process. A good transit chief realizes this. I think part of the problem with this specifically are the charges of cover up and the fact the city manager got a 12,500 bonus just before the news came out. It really looks bad.

BTW, I believe they approved I-485 sometime in the early 80s. It will be a 40 year project when it is completed as they are not scheduled to start the last section until 2013 and they are talking about delays again.

[revitalize]

Everybody in this area drives, but relatively few will be in the position to ride the train.

Not everybody in the area will necessarily ride the Lynx blue line, but if seen as part of a larger transit master plan, I don't view it as any different than construction of "the section of 485 from x to y." I might not ever drive on "x to y" so should I be overly critical of that construction project?

I guess I can't understand the reason the masses outside of UP would/should be so negative and critical of this LRT project, regardless of cost.

[monsoon]

^I don't think anyone here has asked you to be critical of this project. What was stated is that taxes for transit is a much tougher sell job over road building as most people in this area are not going to use the train.

In 20 years the South LRT is projected to have 17,500 people/day using it and it will cost $450M to build a system to carry them around if they don't run the costs up any higher. For a public that is still happy to ride around in SUVs to get groceries, it is really difficult to explain why we should spend this money and screw ups make this task all the more difficult.

Nobody here questions the need for rail transit.

[uptownliving]

Richard Rubin's article this morning in the Observer gives a nice timeline of how the South line got to where it is today regarding the budget overruns.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/15601653.htm

Interesting to note another Council Member has come out and publically supported Ron Tober. I also found this quote to be interesting

McCrory met with new FTA chief James Simpson last week in Washington during a Charlotte Chamber trip.

"What was quite surprising," McCrory said, "is there's more confidence in Washington right now than there is back home on this project."

That is not the first time that I have heard that...even after our latest budget slip...and it is quite comforting to know that Washington still thinks highly of CATS.

A full report to council will be released later today that contains lots of details on how we got where we are.