After months of delays, a major step forward has been taken on the final phase of the Metro A Line light rail project in the eastern San Gabriel Valley.
On Jan. 29, the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority awarded a six-year, $60 million contract to the transportation division of Chantilly, Virginia-based Parsons Corp. for design and engineering services for the 2.3-mile extension of the Metro A Line from its current terminus in Pomona to the neighboring city of Claremont.
The construction authority had initially planned to award a single design and construction contract for a 3.2-mile extension from Pomona to Montclair in San Bernardino County. But last year, two events occurred to throw a wrench into that plan.
First, the lone bid that came in last March from Omaha, Nebraska-based Kiewit Corp. was $994 million, way above the agency’s allotted budget of $645 million. That prompted the authority to separate out the design and the construction portions of the project into distinct contracts to try to attract more bidders.
Then in September, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority voted to pull $37 million in funding for the portion of the project in that county. That forced the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority to set aside that segment and focus only on the 2.3-mile stretch from Pomona to Claremont.
Claremont extension
Last month, three bidders responded to the revamped request for proposals. According to the authority, Parsons Transportation Group was the top scorer among the bidders, and as such received the design contract award.
Parsons, which had been headquartered in Pasadena until 2019, had done design work on previous portions of the Metro A Line extension through the San Gabriel Valley.
“Parsons has led design teams for each phase of this project for the past 25 years, and we are excited to once again be selected to continue that legacy,” Mark Fialkowski, president of infrastructure North America for Parsons, said in the authority’s announcement.
The construction manager contract for the extension is expected to be awarded in May. If the current timetable holds, major construction is set to begin in late 2027 or early 2028 and take about four years to complete.
