“Unfortunately, it’s pretty common for transportation projects to run over budget and behind schedule… Agencies don’t have the expertise in house to make projects happen on time in part because they don’t do it often enough."
Staffing up = on time, on budget #JustTransitionForCaltrans
The press conference seemingly took place on BART's Fleet of the Future cars, a project that came in on time and under budget thanks to management by in-house staff, not consultants. We need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans so that other projects can see the same success. www.bart.gov/news/article...
Bringing service planning, design, and engineering in-house for rail projects would result in massive savings. The status quo is producing big payouts for consultants with little oversight and little to show for it for riders. 20+ years for 2 trains is unacceptable. #JustTransitionForCaltrans
Impact of 1% of California Dept. of Transportation staff engineers retiring. 6:1 ratio of cost savings to salaries and benefits. With 1% of staff engineers retiring, project duration increases 3.21%, total project cost increases 4.3%, project cost overruns increase 5.59%
Civil-engineering has been increasingly outsourced over time. bar chart shows employment vs time from 1995-2025. state, local and federal goverment see nearly flat employment over 30 years at numbers in the low tens of thousands, while private sector employment increases from 100k to nearly 250k today
CA High Speed Rail Authority consultant staff and state staff comparison. Went from 226 in-house and 450 consultant staff in 2018 to 429 in house vs 241 consultant staff in 2024 budget proposal
Why are construction costs exploding faster than inflation? Because use of consultants is skyrocketing, even though in-house staff save 6x their cost.
But CA High Speed Rail bucks the trend, with staff/consultant ratios flipped since a 2018 audit called out understaffing. #JustTransitionForCaltrans
Consultants are taking Coachella Valley Rail to the cleaners. We need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans to do this work in house and build more trains.
We can't let the State Rail Plan be just another plan that stays on the shelf. We need reforms to make it a reality:
- State capacity to design & engineer projects #JustTransitionForCaltrans
- dedicated funding via multi-year investment frameworks
- permitting reform for utilities & 3rd parties
"Sen. Catherine Blakespear, who represents coastal North County, said... that California needs to employ more professional rail experts to reduce its reliance on consultants." #JustTransitionForCaltrans
Missed Monday's webinar? Check out the coverage here on KPBS!
www.kpbs.org/news/quality...
Caltrans' engineering resources overwhelmingly go to highways in spite of state goals to reduce driving, while transit projects rely on the slow process of hiring expensive consultants. We need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans to meet climate goals.
CA has plans to expand regional/intercity rail in the Coachella Valley, Salinas, Chico, Fresno, San Joaquin County... We need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans so we can build these projects on time and under budget and expand transit access to the whole state.
Figure 2.16. Caltrans Staff Positions by Division FY 2020/21- FY 2022/23. Bar chart shows Capital Outlay Support reaching up to 10,000 workers, with local assistance in the low hundreds, Intercity Rail Passenger Program near 0, Statewide planning in the high hundreds, regional planning near 0. The sum of non-capital outlay support is about 1000, dwarfed by the Capital Outlay Support number, which is mostly related to highways.
Not only is 3% of CA's transportation budget for transit agencies, the vast majority of that huge Caltrans budget supports highway projects - while rail gets the scraps. We need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans that shifts those workers into delivering green rail projects quickly and cost effectively.
We know state capacity works for roads. So why not apply these lessons to rail? #JustTransitionForCaltrans
Excellent op-ed. We need long term solutions for transit funding- including multi-year investment frameworks. And we need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans, so that workers currently designing, engineering, and building climate-burning roads can instead build tomorrow's rail infrastructure.
LMCC best practices: Fully fund design. Logos of Deutsch Bahn Engineering and construction, Systra, and Italoferr: gruppo ferruvie dello stato. Examples of European state-owned design firms
Most agencies lack dedicated funding and staff for design work, and the process of hiring consultants adds both time and costs to projects. Instead, the state should take on design work using in-house staff, as is done in European countries with lower construction costs. #JustTransitionForCaltrans
Amtrak is abandoning international best practices. By firing staff, they will increase capital costs and timelines.
But California can lead. We need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans and permanent design and engineering staff at the state level to cost-effectively build out our electric rail network.
No need for every agency to reinvent the wheel. Objective design standards like these are one reason why Italy has much lower costs than California - that's why it's on our list of project delivery reforms. #LeaveRoomForCatenary #JustTransitionForCaltrans calelectricrail.org/transit-capi...
A #JustTransitionforCaltrans: redeploy Caltrans engineers and contractors into railway modernization, electrification, and expansion projects to realize the State Rail Plan and solve intercity traffic
The State’s Role Taken together, these megaprojects are critically important for upgrading the current infrastructure, improving reliability, and expanding rail service to new markets. They are significant investments that require strategic alignment with state policies and funding priorities. Caltrans and CalSTA will continue to collaborate with the rail partners in the state to ensure redundancies are avoided and expertise and resources are utilized efficiently. The State is well-positioned to lead megaproject and megaregional planning that requires coordination between more than one megaproject that often have phasing dependencies that extend across jurisdictional boundaries. The CID Program establishes a partnership and framework with the federal government to further support sustained and coordinated planning between all partners within key corridors and megaregions. The State’s leadership, alongside the expertise and partnership from regional stakeholders will allow the projects to be planned together in this larger megaregional context and will ensure an appropriately phased implementation and funding plan that delivers as many interim benefits as possible. By organizing these projects under the State’s leadership and completing planning and project development through the CID program, the projects within the northern and southern California megaregions will advance as a coordinated program of projects with close coordination and collaboration between the policy, funding, operating, and regulatory partners.
Caltrans and CalSTA plan to take a more active role in managing regional projects - a much needed improvement from the fragmented, provincial status quo that is holding back electrification and better rail service. Time to properly fund the state capacity for this! #JustTransitionForCaltrans
SANDAG Purple Line planning document screenshot table 9-2. Projected Capital Costs without OMFs, ROW, Vehicles, or Finance Charges. Professional services are $5220-6530 out of $18,720-23,410 (cost in millions)
According to the consultants SANDAG hired to plan the future Purple Line, consultant costs ("professional services") are 30% of the total. Consultants are driving transit costs out of control; time for a #JustTransitionForCaltrans to replace them with permanent, union state employees.
#JustTransitionForCaltrans engineers
To be clear, $12.5 million/mile is too high. We are hopeful that
#AB2503 will bring down the cost of catenary, and that a
#JustTransitionForCaltrans and rolling electrification program will do more in the future.
But there is obvious inconsistency about what counts as a reasonable cost.
BART shows delivering projects on time, using in-house staff, saves money! Other transit agencies take note. We need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans and a state department of rail so that everywhere can have access to permanent, public sector rail experts. www.bart.gov/news/article...
Screenshot from TTTF presentation with the following text: Van Ness BRT The Technical Working Group developed a set of actions for the TTTF to consider Proposed options Consider making state funding more flexible to secure long-term support for capital projects Reevaluate permitting regulations, with some entity having the power to say "yes" Create standardized BRT guides to lower costs and streamline implmentation, e.g.: standardized TSP specifications, Bus shelter design standards Evaluate opportunity for Caltrans to build BRT-specific elements (e.g. bus shelters) on its assets, and potentially act as a project manager/builder for non-Caltrans roads.
Lots of conversation at the Transit Transformation Task Force about state level transit planning, engineering, and project delivery -- exactly what we need to deliver electrification quickly, affordably, and at scale. More and more agree we need a #JustTransitionForCaltrans!
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Love this vision from the NRDC. Stop widening highways and electrify Capitol Corridor! Caltrans needs reform now. #JustTransitionForCaltrans
