L.A. Subway Contractor

* Re “Firm Ordered Off Subway Job Keeps Key Role,” April 21:

Additional information concerning your April 21 article about the Metro Red Line needs to be provided to your readers. Parsons-Dillingham (P-D) is, in part, responsible for reducing the Metro Red Line project’s costs, change orders and contractor claims, as well as achieving a safety rate significantly better than the national average. The most recent report by an independent consultant (Barba-Arkhon, Aug. 26, 1994) confirms that P-D’s performance on the Red Line Segment Two met or exceeded industry standards.

The California State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors confirmed that P-D’s resident engineers working on the subway are not required to be licensed engineers in the state because they manage construction.

What is also missing from Metro Red Line articles in The Times is context, i.e., tunnel construction, even today, is as much an art as it is a science. A review of recent engineering literature reveals the recently opened Channel Tunnel exceeded construction costs by 60%; the Great Belt Tunnel in Denmark had a 58% price increase, a several-month delay and a fire; on the Munich subway, four people were killed when a bus drove into a four-lane hole in the street caused by a tunnel collapse during construction; subway construction under Heathrow Airport partially collapsed a two-story building; ambiguous soil studies may add $64 million to the cost of the Boston Central Artery Tunnel; a Portland, Ore., tunnel project had to temporarily abandon its tunneling machine due to unanticipated hard rock conditions, threatening greatly increased costs; the San Francisco Municipal Railway tunnel project experienced surface settlements of up to 5.5 inches; and Seattle, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., projects all experienced not just sinkage, but actual surface collapses, something the management of the Metro Red Line has been able to prevent.

Be assured, Los Angeles is getting a world-class subway.

RON WILDERMUTH

Parsons-Dillingham

Los Angeles