Metro Red Line Construction

* This letter is to provide your readers with important information relevant to your recent articles (Nov. 16-17) about the construction of the Metro Red Line.

The Los Angeles Metro Rail System is the largest, most complex and challenging construction project in the history of our county. Building a subway beneath America’s second largest city in a safe and cost-effective manner is an undertaking guaranteed to test the limits of the engineering and construction professions. Managing such an enterprise day-to-day involves coordinating the efforts of 10,000 people working for hundreds of different companies in Los Angeles, across the nation and around the world. The work is complex, difficult and demanding.

Despite enormous environmental, technical and management challenges, the first phase of Los Angeles’ new subway opened successfully in January of this year, some 6 1/2 years after the first shovel of dirt was turned. In the months since, the system has safely and reliably carried over 2 million riders. The total cost was 15% higher than the original budget established in 1986, and we will certainly make every effort to improve on that performance in the future. However, we are aware of no comparable project in the nation that experienced less cost growth over its life.

Management responsibility for construction of the Metro Red Line changed from the SCRTD to the RCC in 1990. At that time an audit of the project was performed by Deloitte-Kellogg. This publicly reported audit concluded that if recommended management actions were taken immediately, the first phase of the project could be completed at a cost of $1.45 billion and could open on its then-current schedule of September, 1993.

Between 1990 and today, we’ve reduced the total project cost by over $30 million and opened the subway to the public eight months sooner than scheduled. This schedule improvement was achieved by implementing numerous management strategies to gain back lost time and by streamlining the project start-up phase. For our cost control, schedule improvement and overall management effectiveness, the Metro Red Line segment one management team was recently awarded the International Award for Management Excellence by the Project Management Institute, one of nine distinguished merit awards that the Metro system has received during the past year.

The thousands of women and men working on this project are committed to excellence. Our continuous improvement efforts over the last three years on the Metro Red Line alone are saving the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

The next segment of the Red Line to open will extend service to Wilshire Boulevard and Western. After three years of construction, this segment remains on schedule for a mid-1996 opening. Segment two of the Red Line today is also on budget with half the amount of change orders and construction claims incurred on segment one. In addition, we have stepped up quality control and have reduced the number of serious construction-related injuries to nearly one-half of the national average.

Los Angeles’ new rail system is being built by human beings. As with any complicated human endeavor, there will be mistakes. The taxpayers can be confident, however, that if a mistake occurs on this project, it will be in an environment of continuous improvement where mistakes are carefully analyzed and result in appropriate changes to the manner in which work is done.

EDWARD McSPEDON

Executive Officer, Construction

and President, Rail Construction Corp.

Los Angeles