Veteran Rail Project Chief Picked to Build Pasadena Line

A divided Pasadena Blue Line board Wednesday night chose Rick Thorpe, manager of the Salt Lake City’s light-rail project, to take charge of building a long-awaited passenger railroad from Los Angeles to Pasadena.

Paul Little, chairman of the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority, said the board voted 3 to 2 to negotiate a contract with Thorpe to be chief executive officer. If the contract negotiations are successful, Thorpe will assume the job of completing the 13.7-mile line from Union Station to Pasadena.

Thorpe, a civil engineer, has built light-rail projects on tight budgets in San Diego and Salt Lake City. Little said that experience was a major factor in Thorpe’s selection over Charles Stark, construction chief of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“He’s done the work in San Diego and Salt Lake on time and under budget,” Little said. “He’s dealt with multiple communities very successfully. He brings the energy, enthusiasm and experience to get us back on the schedule we need to be on.”

But Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who joined MTA representative William Dahl in supporting Stark, said Thorpe faces “a steep learning curve” as a newcomer to the rough politics of mass transit in Los Angeles.

Hernandez said he believed that Stark, a veteran subway builder in Los Angeles, was “the individual who could keep us on track.” He said Thorpe can build the Pasadena line, but it will take him time to learn the project.

Thorpe was chosen after a final interview with the directors Wednesday evening in downtown Los Angeles.

Little said he was optimistic that the rail authority board will work together with one goal in mind--finishing the line from Union Station to Sierra Madre Villa in east Pasadena.

State lawmakers frustrated with the MTA’s track record on Los Angeles subway and rail projects stripped the agency of responsibility for building the Pasadena line last year. The MTA had spent more than $240 million on the project before financial problems halted work on the line and on subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City areas of Los Angeles.

Legislators created the Pasadena rail authority with only one mission: to finish the rail line from Union Station through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena. Once the line is built, the MTA will operate the trains.

Faced with limited resources, the five-member authority’s greatest challenge is to get the project finished by the middle of 2003 without exceeding a $683.7-million budget. .

Unlike the MTA, the new agency is dominated by three representatives from the San Gabriel Valley and they prevailed in the choice of Thorpe after a protracted search for candidates and a long deadlock over the two finalists.

Thorpe is a vice president of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a major transportation design and engineering firm. For the past four years, he has been project manager for TRAX in Salt Lake City, a 15-mile light-rail line scheduled for completion late this year, months ahead of schedule and below its $312-million budget.

Before that, Thorpe was the director of engineering and construction for light-rail and bus transit projects in San Diego for many years. While there, Thorpe oversaw the building of that city’s popular streetcar lines that are considered a model of cost-effective rail construction.