Expo Line mess offers cautionary tale for subway lovers

The thing is only $260 million over budget and two years behind schedule - and that's just for the first phase to Culver City. So what happened? The Weekly's Gene Maddaus writes that an unorthodox approach was taken during the project's design and bidding phase, and it wound up backfiring. At the center of this is Rick Thorpe, who runs the Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority (and who up to now had an excellent reputation in the light-rail world).

He sold elected officials on a new type of contract, which he said would bring the project in cheaper and faster than it could be done by traditional means. Colleagues from other transit agencies warned that the idea might not work. In the name of holding down costs, it could inadvertently create incentives that would drive costs up. But Thorpe pressed ahead anyway, and the elected officials charged with overseeing the line put their faith in his expertise. Now, four years into the project, the results are plain. "It just doesn't work," says Dan Peterson, an arbitrator with 50 years of experience in public works projects. "They're trying to save 20 cents and it's costing them $20 million."

None of which is to say that the efforts at building a subway to the Westside would result in a similar disaster. There's no way to know at this early stage. But just consider that the proposed subway would be far costlier and complex than the Expo Line - and take far longer, a good 25-30 years, if you dismiss the mayor's quixotic plan to complete 30 years of construction work in 10.