Tunnel Visionaries

Dan Baicoiann cannot imagine a Los Angeles without crowded freeways, endless rush hours and smog.

His job won’t permit it.

“I only go to cities with bad traffic,” he said. “My job is to try to fix that.”

The 53-year-old systems manager has spent the past year in Los Angeles on behalf of Parsons-Dillingham, the contractor hired by the county to supervise much of the subway construction.

His job is to make sure everybody else is doing theirs properly and on schedule.

“I have to make sure everything is being installed correctly,” he said. “I need to be always aware of what’s going on.”

For instance, engineers cannot operate radios if another contractor has not yet installed power, he said.

“But thank God, we did not see anything like that here,” he said. “For the first time, I see everybody working ahead of schedule.”

Before coming to Los Angeles, Baicoiann helped develop rail systems in several other cities in the U.S., Europe and Canada.

“It was fun. But dealing with different people with different ideas and goals was not always easy,” he said.

The task he has enjoyed most on this project, he said, was being in the field, seeing firsthand that everything the decision-makers talked of was being implemented.

“I’ve been in transit all my life,” he said. “I’ve seen many other transit systems around the world, and this is one of the most modern ones. I think people will be pleased.”