Subway Red Line Running Late; Opening Is Delayed

The opening of Los Angeles’ Metro Red Line subway system--originally scheduled for April, 1992, and later postponed until January, 1993--will be delayed another nine months, to September, 1993, the Rapid Transit District Board of Directors said Thursday.

The cost of building the first 4.4 miles of the subway line, running from Union Station through the downtown area to MacArthur Park, remains under the projected budget of $1.25 billion, but the so-called “contingency” margin could shrink significantly, RTD officials said.

In February, the contingency--a budget line item set aside for unforeseen expenses--still totaled $66 million. The officials said Thursday that the unexpected costs of the new delays could reduce that figure to $41 million.

Should that figure drop to zero, any further unforeseen expenses would push the cost of the project over budget.

The latest delays were first forecast--although not specified--two months ago, when engineers said they were running into excavation problems resulting from unexpectedly large boulders, soft soils, accumulating water and breakdowns of tunneling machinery.

RTD Board President Gordana Swanson said at the time that these problems were “almost like acts of God--there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Earlier delays had been attributed to difficulties getting the tunneling work under way in the Union Station area.

First there were disputes with the transportation companies that own the railroad station over construction access and how the underground subway terminal would fit into the rest of the station. Then there were problems designing and building a system to decontaminate the millions of gallons of ground water that are being pumped out of the subterranean construction area.

But despite all these problems, RTD General Manager Alan F. Pegg maintained an optimistic outlook Thursday.

“Given the complexities of an undertaking of this magnitude, the project is still doing well,” Pegg said. “We want the Red Line to open as much as anyone, and we are determined to do so as soon as possible, while . . . ensuring the safest possible system.”

The “Red Line” is the RTD’s new name for the subway system, which originally was to be known simply as “Metro Rail.” The RTD now plans to call its intersecting light-rail trolley line the “Blue Line.”