Fremont Argus
   Article last updated:

   Friday, October 12, 2001   2:55 AM MST
   
   BART freezes Warm Springs bid
   
   By Sean Holstege, STAFF WRITER
   
   The BART Board of Directors balked Thursday at awarding two contracts
   to start in earnest the work on a long-planned $633 million extension
   from Fremont to Warm Springs, the first phase of an ultimate extension
   to San Jose.
   
   After a series of 4-4 votes to approve or postpone awarding two Warm
   Springs contracts, the board tabled the issue for two weeks by
   default.
   
   One contract, for Oakland-based Jones & Stokes, was a $5 million,
   five-year job to update a 1991 environmental study. The larger
   contract -- a $75 million, 10-year job to design and engineer the
   5.6-mile Warm Springs extension -- drew most of the controversy.
   
   BART brass had recommended awarding the work to Parsons Brinckerhoff
   Quade & Douglas Inc., one of the firms in the consortium building the
   extension to San Francisco International Airport.
   
   That fact, and the fact that Parsons Brinckerhoff had also been
   involved in extensions to Colma, Pittburg/Bay Point and
   Dublin/Pleasanton rubbed Director Tom Radulovich the wrong way.
   
   "This consortium has been paid more than $400 million. In awarding
   this contract we would be saying that this firm gets all the
   extensions," the San Francisco director said.
   
   "For the $400 million, we didn't get very good work," he added,
   complaining of cost inflation on the SFO extension that ballooned the
   original $700 million preliminary estimate to the current $1.5 billion
   price,
   
   Radulovich also complained that stations don't serve pedestrians and
   nobody ever assessed how the extra passengers from the extensions
   would burden the existing system.
   
   Director James Fang, also of San Francisco, objected to having two
   days to review a major bid.
   
   "I felt a little ambushed to go along with the play. If there were any
   questions this was a very good tactic to limit them," Fang said.
   
   But some directors defended both Parsons and the selection process
   that picked the firm.
   
   "Any one of these firms could do a good job," Fremont Director Tom
   Blalock countered, noting that it is illegal to shut out a bidder.
   
   He and Dublin Director Pete Snyder blamed bickering and politics on
   overruns on the 8.7-mile SFO extnsion, which is scheduled to open in
   the fall of 2002.
   
   "This is exactly what cost us on the SFO project: delay, delay, delay.
   And it was because somebody had a burr in their saddle about something
   they don't like," Snyder said.