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PEP Archives | May 2002
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CONTRACTING IN
Saving tax dollars at Ground Zero
Local 375 members are overseeing the reconstruction of the subway
tunnel for the #1 and #9 trains, which was destroyed in the World
Trade Center attack.
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By GREGORY N. HEIRES
The Metropolitan Transit Authority is on track to waste $250 million
over several years by contracting out design work for the future 2nd
Avenue subway.
Meanwhile, it is saving millions of taxpayers' dollars by relying
on in-house union professionals to plan and supervise the reconstruction
of the sections of the 1 and 9 subway line destroyed on Sept. 11.
The terrorist attack collapsed about 1,200 feet of the subway between
the Chambers Street Station and the Rector Street Station. Some 600,000
riders a day relied on the service to get to work, so MTA New York
City Transit is under trem-endous pressure to get the system running
again.
The goal is to restore service by the fall - a two-year job that the
union team expects to finish in six months.
"We cut out the middleman," said Associate Railroad Signals
Specialist Joe Cristiano, who estimates that assigning signal work
to in-house staff rather than contracting out has saved several million
dollars.
As the project speeds along, Local 375 members like Mr. Cristiano
take tremendous pride in the being part of the mammoth undertaking.
They say their work shows why contracting out is unnecessary and wasteful.
"There is no way that consultants could have carried out this
project as quickly and efficiently as our members," said Robert
Mariano, treasurer of Local 375 and president of its Transit chapter.
"The agency in effect recognized this by keeping the work in-house."
Twice recently, Local President Claude Fort accompanied members to
Ground Zero to gain a first-hand impression of the operation. "This
project should serve as a model for Transit," Mr. Fort said.
"It is astonishing to consider that our members turned over the
design work in just a few weeks and will be responsible for seeing
that the reconstruction gets completed in record time."
Backing Mr. Cristiano's assertion, Local 375 adviser Leon Soffin estimates
that Transit saved millions of dollars by keeping the design work
and project management in-house. Typically, the salary and overhead
of private companies for such work adds up to twice the cost of that
of staffers. The necessary in-house review of consultants' work adds
another 20 percent on top of the firms' fees.
Engineer John Malvasio was among about 100 Local 375 members from
the Maintenance of Way unit who initially inspected the damage to
the subway. Their disciplines included infrastructure, electricity,
signals, communications, mechanical engineer-ing, field inspection
and communications.
As the excavation began, they watchdogged the work to ensure that
workers using heavy machinery didn't cause any further harm to the
subway system, Mr. Malvasio said. Their damage assessment guided the
union members who worked on the design.
Surveyors, including Administrative Engineer Matthew Molahan, played
a key support role in blueprinting the renovations.
By using old surveys and carrying out new studies, they provided designers
with drawings of the vast underground network of sewer pipes and utility
cables in the tunnel area, Mr. Molahan said. The team conducted nine
surveys. Then the workers produced computer-based drawings of the
northern and southern sections of the area.
New digitized drawings
Clotilde Ferrer, an Assistant Transit Manager Analyst Level 2, was
part of the team of about 10 members who worked on the drawings of
the new tunnel. She produced a 40-foot map that wraps around three
walls of a conference room in Transit headquarters at 2 Broadway in
Lower Manhattan.
Working with original subway plans dating as far back as 1915, Ms.
Ferrer and her coworkers used sophisticated computer software to create
new digitized drawings of the tunnel. "It is very exciting work,
because it is like putting together the pieces to a puzzle,"
she said.
All told, the team produced two huge volumes with about 350 drawings.
Besides drafting plans for the tunnel, tracks and platforms, Local
375 members have also designed two giant underground rooms for the
subway ventilation system.
Ihab "Bobby" Shafei, an Engineer Level 2 in Capital Program
Management, is the acting project engineer for the 1 and 9 job.
During the early phase, Mr. Shafei worked on designing and planning.
He and his colleagues needed to study the foundations of area buildings
before the tunnel could be designed.
"What we are doing is almost impossible," said Mr. Shafei,
who is now monitoring the estimated $92 million construction job,
which has been awarded to a partnership of Tully Construction and
Pegno Construction.
"Under normal circumstances, this should take at least two years.
We are planning to do it in about six months."