LACMTA seeks P3s to accelerate Measure M

Written by Maggie Lancaster, assistant editor
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LACMTA

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) is moving forward with a series of public-private partnerships (P3s) in efforts to expedite Measure M transportation projects.

 

The partnerships would help accelerate three major Measure M projects: the Sepulveda Transit Corridor, the West Santa Ana Branch Transit Corridor and extension of the ExpressLanes network.

“The voters of Los Angeles County have given us a mandate to build new public transportation projects as quickly as possible — now, it’s our turn to deliver on that promise,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, chair of the LACMTA Board. “By creating innovative partnerships with the private sector, we can accelerate Measure M projects, and ease traffic across our region even more quickly than we expected.”

The next step is to issue requests for proposals (RFPs) that give all firms the chance to offer proposals on how these projects could be accelerated. While it might have taken years to reach this stage in the past, the process is streamlined by the unsolicited proposal policy launched by LACMTA Office of Extraordinary Innovation in 2016.

“Among the benefits of these unsolicited proposals is that each carries the potential for significant cost savings if the projects can be built sooner, because construction costs rise over time,” said LACMTA CEO Phillip A. Washington. “They also may generate unanticipated revenue to potentially accelerate other Measure M projects – and this could greatly help other parts of our region.”

After a detailed evaluation of proposals for the Sepulveda Transit Corridor from Parsons Transportation Group, Inc., and Cintra (Cintra US Services LLC, an affiliate of Cintra Global Ltd.), LACMTA plans to develop an RFP for the transit portion of the project. The project will be pursued as a Project Development Agreement where the contractor comes on board early in the planning and design process to influence efficiencies and cost savings. Two proposals for the West Santa Ana Branch Transit Corridor from Skanska (Skanska USA Civil West) and Kiewit (Kiewit Infrastructure West Co.) will result in an RFP for a P3 utilizing elements from both proposals. A proposal for providing a regional approach to develop LACMTA’s ExpressLanes network was submitted by Goldman Sachs. LACMTA plans to pursue a procurement for bond underwriting to fund the implementation of the regional ExpressLanes network.

“Since we announced our new unsolicited proposal policy last year, we have been gratified by the overwhelming response,” said LACMTA Chief Innovation Officer Joshua Schank. “We are seeing innovation at its best and we look forward to delivering projects and programs – supported by P3s – to improve the quality of life in our region sooner rather than later.”

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