Caltrain Awards CM/GC Contract for Mountain View Project
Written by Carolina Worrell, Senior Editor, Railway Age
Caltrain on May 4 announced that its Board of Directors voted to award a Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) contract for the Mountain View Transit Center Grade Separation and Access Project to Stacy & Witbeck, Inc. and Myers & Sons Construction, a joint venture headquartered in Alameda, Calif. The cost of the first phase, referred to as pre-construction services, is $1.49 million.
According to Caltrain, the project, which is being funded by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (SCVTA) Measure B Program and the City of Mountain View, will improve safety and multimodal access to the transit center and Downtown Mountain View. The project, Caltrain says, is focused on the Castro Street/Moffett Boulevard/Central Expressway intersection and will close the Castro Street crossing of the railroad tracks. A shared use pathway that allows pedestrians and cyclists to pass under the tracks and Central Expressway will offer safe and easy access to residents and office workers to Mountain View’s vibrant downtown.
The City of Mountain View identified this project as Phase I of the 2017 Transit Master Plan. Determinations, Caltrain says, will be made this year regarding the architectural design and public art that will be featured, with the Final Design scheduled to be completed in Summer 2024. Construction is expected to begin that summer, with a completion date in late 2026.
According to Caltrain, this contract follows an earlier action to authorize the use of CM/GC for the project, as opposed to conventional design-bid-build project delivery. “There are advantages to the CM/GC delivery which engages the contractor earlier in the project,” said the agency, which is using the CM/GC project delivery for the first time as a key strategy being deployed by Caltrain’s Design & Construction team in “expanding the pallet of project delivery methods being utilized to increased schedule and cost certainty, particularly on large, complex projects.”
Creating a grade separation at Castro Street so people and vehicles will no longer be required to cross the tracks will “improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, reduce train gate down-time and horn noise, reduce conflicts between trains, vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclist, and improve traffic flow,” Caltrain said.
