The Chicago Transit Authority has announced that it has chosen Walsh Construction along with joint venture partner Fluor to design Phase One of the Red and Purple Modernization (RPM) Program per Roads & Bridges.
The project will deliver improved infrastructure and ridership capacity along Chicago's most utilized transit lines. This will be the largest capital project in the CTA's history at $2.1 billion.
The lead designer Stantec Consulting Services and major sub-consultant designers EXP, International Bridge Technologies and TranSmart/EJM Engineering along with Walsh Construction and Fluor will design and build new elevated tracks along a 1.9 mile section on the north side of Chicago.
A Red-Purple Bypass will modernize the century old Clark junction where the Red, Purple and Brown Line trains currently intersect at the same grade. The flyover bypass structure will eliminate train congestion by allowing eight more Red Line Trains per hour during rush periods. This will allow 7,200 additional customers per hour during rush periods and increasing Red and Purple Line train speeds through the intersection.
Also included in the project will be rebuilding the Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn and Bryn Mawr stations, and all the tracks and support structures for more than a mile next to the stations. New bridges, support structures, tracks and 3.2 miles of signal system upgrades will also be constructed.
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The project is expected to start in the first quarter of 2019 and completion is due by early 2025.
The RPM Phase One Project will be one of many transit improvement projects built by Walsh across Chicago. Walsh is busy right now rehabilitating the CTA's Garfield Green Line Station in the Washington Park neighborhood as well as the Belmont and Jefferson Park Blue Line Intermodal Facilities.
According to Construction Dive, the Joint Venture's contract is $1.2 billion and the project will be paid for with $956 million through the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grant Program, $115 million of Federal congestion mitigation and air quality funds, $384 million of city sales tax bonds and cash and $610 million through local tax increment financing (TIF) districts.
The authority also stated that it has awarded HNTB Corp. a nearly $21 million program management contract to oversee the final environmental review process for a separate $2.3 billion, 5.3 mile extension of the Red Line. HNTB's work will also include preliminary engineering work and an analysis of potential impacts of the project, both of which are necessary if the authority hopes to compete successfully for more than $1 billion of New Starts grant money from the FTA.
After the 2016 presidential election but before President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city council rushed through the local matching funds approvals for the Red Line-Purple Line modernization so that they could try to secure the FTA grant before President Barack Obama left office. This was due to President Trump's long-winded speech about his initial $1 trillion infrastructure proposal. Trump thought local agencies and states relied too much on federal help for their transportation projects and that national imports should get preference when it came to federal dollars. He had suggested a maximum direct federal contribution of $200 billion, leaving state and local governments wondering if they were going to have to figure out a way to come up with the rest.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the president might be willing to increase the federal share in order to reach a compromise on infrastructure with Democrats in Congress. This could be very good news for a construction industry that has been waiting for the massive initiative to get underway and for the American people as they have been demanding that infrastructure improvements be made.