Keep Watch Over the Corridor

There may be more riding on the Alameda Corridor than loads of cargo from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. It would be encouraging, for example, if Southern California could boast about a major construction project that is finished on time instead of months or years late. How nice it would also be if that project’s final cost came in at less than a five-fold increase over original estimates.

Nor should construction companies be allowed to run up millions upon millions of dollars in those all-too-common unexpected cost increases. One more point. Once the project is built, let’s read this line in an audit report: “This enterprise is protected by just the kind of internal scrutiny and tight attention to cost controls that all such projects require.”

That isn’t too much to ask, is it?

So far the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority doesn’t think so, and that’s good. The authority is in charge of the $2.4-billion project to build a high-speed rail corridor linking the burgeoning ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to inland transcontinental railroad connections.

Contractually, corridor officials have told Times reporters, there is an array of incentives to keep the trench on schedule and within budget. In addition, the agency will hire a chief engineer--a so-called owner representative--to oversee the work.

To aim to stay on schedule, the authority will assess the major contractor $125,000 to $200,000 for each day of delay. Moreover, the contractor for the trench is also responsible for the overall design of the project and must bear the risk of any problems it causes. According to corridor officials, that setup will give the contractor “minimal opportunity” to seek change orders that can drive up prices.

If all of these plans hold up in practice, the corridor would mark a welcome change from the runaway costs that have bedeviled other Southern California projects:

* The Domenigoni Valley Reservoir, a $2-billion-plus project southwest of Hemet in Riverside County, which will serve as the region’s emergency water source. The project is already over budget by about $220 million, officials belatedly informed the Metropolitan Water District board last week.

* Metrolink, run by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority and which now operates 107 trains a day serving Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. Auditors recently disclosed that Metrolink’s business procedures were so loose that millions of dollars were probably being wasted every year.

* The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, drowning in $7 billion of debt.

Some of the same contractors hired for the MTA now work on the Alameda Corridor, and they must be held on a tight rein. Otherwise there will be no change in Southern California’s reputation for mismanagement.