Road Builders Look for a Measure M ‘Pick-Me-Up’ : Transportation: Designers and engineers will be the first to benefit from projects worth billions in next 20 years.

Orange County’s road builders and designers suffering from the current slowdown in new housing development are hoping that Measure M, which will pump $3.1 billion into county transportation projects in the next 20 years, will revive their business.

“We are hoping the money will become available real quick,” said Robert Holland, general manager of Sully-Miller, a Long Beach-based road builder with an office in Orange. Holland said his firm was once very busy doing work on Irvine Co. developments in Tustin, Orange and Irvine. But now, he said, “our business has dwindled to next to nothing.”

On Wednesday, the day after the county’s voters approved imposing a half-cent transportation sales tax to relieve the county’s congested freeways and surface streets, it seemed as if Holland’s wish may be granted.

The Orange County Transportation Commission called a press conference to say it would explore ways to find immediate financing for proposed transportation projects, although the first funds from the new tax won’t become available until July.

Kenneth Smith, Orange County’s director of transportation, said the California Department of Transportation, the county and individual cities will soon be hiring contractors for the first Measure M projects. The firms that are likely to benefit include engineering and design firms, construction companies and suppliers of asphalt, traffic signals and road-building equipment.

Besides road contractors, Smith said, the county will also be in need of assistance from companies that are familiar with designing commuter rail systems.

As cities and counties gear up to spend the new funds, the first companies expected to benefit will be those specializing in design and engineering work.

Design and construction, he said, will be phased in over the 20-year funding period. “One of the messages we need to get out is that the public is probably not going to see a lot of construction immediately. It is going to take time to get the projects designed and scoped out,” he said.

Robert Carley, a senior vice president for Robert Bien William Frost & Associates in Irvine, said his company intends to bid on the new public works projects. The company’s engineering and design business has fallen off with the housing industry decline, he said.

Carley said the new projects come at a good time from the standpoint of local taxpayers. Because many contractors aren’t that busy, he said, government agencies should be able “to get some good prices and save the public some money.”

Government agencies in Orange County are expected to use money provided through Measure M as matching funds to apply for Caltrans assistance in financing new projects. Caltrans, in turn, has access to new funds provided through a gasoline sales tax increase approved by the state’s voters in June.

Robert Bramen, vice president and regional manager of New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas’ office in Orange, said some East Coast transportation consultants recently have opened offices in Southern California. He said they are being drawn by new transportation funding, including the move for private developers to build toll roads.

“I think all consulting firms now realize that California and Southern California in particular . . . is the hot location for transportation projects,” Bramen said.

Competition for transportation projects will come not only from out-of-state contractors but from Orange County engineering and design firms that previously specialized in other fields.

David Kilmurray, director of transportation and public works for Holmes & Narver, a design engineering firm in Orange, said the company is hoping that work resulting from Measure M will pick up the slack from declining military contracts that were once a company staple.

Robert Humer, regional representative for the Asphalt Institute, an industry trade group, said asphalt firms in Southern California have been struggling because of the slowdown in freeway construction.

He said the industry had lobbied for the two previous highway funding measures that were defeated in Orange County. “Our industry had almost given up on it, so it (the passage of Measure M) was a pleasant surprise,” he said.