The Transportation Corridor Agency (TCA), a joint powers agency in Orange County, California, is a new public toll road authority in a region with no history of toll roads. The TCA was faced with two "mega" projects: the $1.1 billion San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor (SJHTC) toll road (opened to traffic November 21, 1996) and the $1.4 billion Eastern Transportation Corridor (ETC) toll road. A portion of the third corridor, the Foothill Transportation Corridor (North) toll road, has recently been completed. (See Figure 1.) The southern portion of the Foothill Transportation Corridor (FTC-S) is presently under development. The TCA, utilizing a small in-house staff and consultants, elected to perform all preliminary engineering and environmental work for the SJHTC and ETC projects by conventional methods. In lieu of financing the projects at this stage, the TCA elected to bring the design to the 35 percent level and proceed with bidding the remainder of the work as a package. This is the Design/Build approach. The package included completion of the design, right-of-way engineering, utility relocation, local permitting and construction. Upon receiving bids, the TCA financed the remainder of the work through separate bond issues. The indication from the financial community is that they would be more receptive to a firm fixed price contract with a guaranteed completion date for the work in lieu of the more traditional use of an engineer's estimate to support a bond financed project . (A)
Abstract