No Light at the End of the Tunnel: Delayed Job $30M Over Budget

Contract change orders responsible for price overruns.

BY CAMDEN SWITA, PACIFICA PATCH
Caltrans' Devil's Slide Tunnels project has run about $30 million over budget, the Half Moon Bay Review reported Wednesday. According to the Review, the cost overruns are a result of several contract change orders made by the state transportation agency over the past four years. The change orders have revised contracts for things such as steel reinforcements and repairs of cracks found by engineers. The extra $30 million brings the total price tag of the project, which would connect the Midcoast to Pacifica, to just over $300 million, the Review reported. Other recent project setbacks have cost both time and money, such as the discovery of "strange" soil patterns that will delay the opening of the tunnels to late 2012 and legal trouble between two area water districts earlier this year.

Comments

[Carl May]

While you are at it with the numbers, consider how much less the tunnels boondoggle is costing than the eastern span of the Bay Bridge boondoggle. In terms of regional notice by a public with a short attention span, one could say the Bay Bridge is running cover for the mistakes on the tunnels.

On the other hand, it would be interesting if some wonk would break down the money squandered per expected vehicle using the two projects. The difference in waste between the two projects might not be so dramatic in such a comparison.

[mitch reid]

I’ve been in an ongoing and contained state of outrage regarding Caltrans actions since 1995.
To quote Elvis Costello: “ I used to be disgusted, but now I’m just amused…”.
Nevertheless, I am still outraged by the additional costs to the project.

The extra year to finish the project doesn’t bother me. It still will have taken Kiewit less time to build the bridges and dig the two almost-mile-long tunnels (five years) than it took for Caltrans to write and “Fast Track” the environmental document (10 years).

Math is not my best area, but let's compare how the tunnels project estimates compare to the recent Calera Parkway project.

The tunnel in 1996 (one bore at the time) was to cost roughly $50 million to $70 million; 15 years later the final estimated price tag is just over $300 million.

The Highway 1/Calera Parkway widening project started out at $6 million in 1999; 12 years later it is estimated at $52 million.

My how money and time flies.

[Carl May]

No outrage here because this is par for the course with Caltrans and its contractors on large projects like this. "Creeping soil" is simply the most facile phrase at hand for selling the public on the idea this is not all about spending as much as possible given the circumstances and times.

When the project was first doubled from what it needed to be, realists took the approximately $200+ million estimate of the moment and doubled it to $400+ million.

You need to know only a little about how Caltrans and its contractors consistently operate to be able to make such relatively accurate forecasts. After all, once they get funding sources, the public, and various agencies involved to buy into the initial scam and then do most of the project with all its impacts to the location and expenditure of tax dollars, what is anyone going to do at a late stage when they claim they have encountered a convenient problem and don't have enough money to deal with it? Say "oh well," convert the tunnels to emergency shelters, and dewater/stabilize the landslide for relatively little money? Not bloody likely. It's all pretty sad when one of the original single-tunnel estimates by an engineering firm during the Measure T campaign was $60 million. But it's not outrageous because it's not unexpected.

[Jim Alex]

Montara Mountain, like any mountain, is full of natural springs. Plus the mountain is moving and shifting and growing.

Mount Rose, between Lake Tahoe, Reno, and Carson City, was raised one foot in elevation by just one earthquake.

Why such outrage about the cost of Highway 1 and no outrage here?

[todd bray]

Abandonment is next because of soil movement issues. The soil inside the hill is so wet it is mud, very stiff mud but mud nonetheless. The tunnels bored through it as if it were stable mud, but it is not stable mud. If the soil is in a permanent state of movement due to moisture, the tunnels may never open. This was known (interior soil moisture) four years ago, BTW.

[John Maybury]

So where is the outrage about this? First, we hear it's delayed by a year, now we hear that it's $30 million over budget. What's next?