The Seattle Monorail

I've been looking at the Seattle Monorail recently. The board just came to contract agreements with Cascadia Monorail Company, LLC (http://www.cascadiamonorail.com/), and we're go for the start of construction. That's wonderful!

I've always wondered why the Seattle city Council didn't take on the management of the project instead of agreeing to a DBOM contract. That's Design, Build, Operate & Maintain. This model has evidently been used in other locations, and it's basically privatizing it as much as possible, while still keeping citizen oversight. What happens to the Monorail Board once the Green Line is complete is almost an open question, although to hear them tell it they're already starting to work on the next part of the project.

Now let's look at the Company itself. Cascadia Monorail Company, LLC, is a collaboration among a whole bunch of firms. Let's list them, and determine what information we can about them. Are they Public Firms? If so, we can get a piece of the action. If they're privately owned, who owns them? I can't answer all of these questions immediately, but it will be an interesting project. Much of this information is available on the Cascadia website.

Fluor Enterprises, Inc.

Fluor Corporation, the parent company of Fluor Enterprises, Inc., provides services on a global basis in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, operations, maintenance and project management. The company has worked on a number of urban transit projects including the HSL South Transportation System in The Netherlands (a trans-European rail network), Railtrack’s East Coast Main Line in Great Britain and the Conway Bypass Project in South Carolina. Fluor Corporation, one of the world's largest, publicly owned engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance services organizations, is a Fortune 500 company with revenues of $10 billion in fiscal year 2002. Consistently rated as one of the world's safest contractors, Fluor's primary objective is to develop, execute, and maintain capital projects on schedule, within budget, and with operational excellence. For more information, visit www.fluor.com.

Fluor Corporation is a public company (NYSE: FLR), and they actually advertise on their Investors page that we can invest in the company at ShareBuilder. That's really cool, and rare. They're based in Dallas, Ft. Worth Texas. According to opensecrets.org, their federal PAC donated $229,649 to federal candidates, 17% to Democrats, 83% to Republicans. We need to get their attention about Jay Inslee's Apollo Project. If they want major construction contracts, alternative energy would get them a lot more money than the old and dying oil industry.

Hitachi Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. is a leading global technology company, with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2001consolidated sales totaled $60.1 billion. The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including urban transit systems. With nearly four decades of experience, Hitachi provides advanced urban transportation solutions. Hitachi’s design technology has evolved over the past 38 years into a highly reliable and predictable mode of urban mass transit including the Tokyo Monorail, Kitakyushu Monorail, Osaka Monorail, Tama Monorail, and the Okinawa Monorail. Hitachi purchased a licensing agreement from Alweg for the production of Alweg-based designs in Japan during the 1962 World’s Fair. Hitachi has been improving upon those designs for the past 38 years, providing unsurpassed safety and reliability. For more information, visit www.hitachi-rail.com/products/monorail/.

Mitsui USA

The parent company of Mitsui USA is Mitsui & Co Ltd, (NASDAQ: MITSY) based in Japan. Mitsui & Co., U.S.A., Inc., a leading international trading house with an extensive global network, has over 100 consolidated subsidiaries and joint ventures across the U.S. The company's total trading transactions amounted to $7.5 billion for the year ended March 31, 2002. In the 2002 world’s largest corporations lists, its parent company, Mitsui & Co., Ltd., is ranked 6th in “The International 500” by Forbes magazine and 13th in “The Global 500” by Fortune magazine. For more information, visit www.mitsui.com.

HDR Engineering, Inc.

HDR is a nationally recognized employee-owned architectural, engineering consulting firm. Established in 1917, the company employs over 3,200 professionals across the U.S. and abroad, including architects, engineers, consultants, scientists, planners and construction managers, in over 85 locations worldwide, to provide solutions beyond the scope of traditional A/E/C firms. Engineering News-Record consistently ranks HDR as one of the “Top 20” transportation engineering firms. The company opened its first Pacific Northwest office in Seattle in 1975 and now employs more than 350 people in seven Northwest offices in Bellevue, Pasco and Port Orchard, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; Missoula, Montana; and Anchorage, Alaska. For more information, visit www.hdrinc.com.

Howard S. Wright Construction Co.

Howard S. Wright Construction Co., founded in 1885, provides professional construction services in the areas of commercial, institutional and industrial buildings. Since the company started in the state of Washington, it has performed work in a majority of the Western states including Alaska and Hawaii. Now a symbol of Seattle, the Space Needle was originally built by Howard S. Wright Construction Co. as the focal point for the 1962 World's Fair. The foundation of the Space Needle consists of 5,850 tons of concrete and steel, resting on a 30-foot deep foundation. The company was also the general contractor for the World’s Fair Monorail and the Seattle Art Museum. For more information, visit www.howardswright.com.

Hoffman Construction Company

Hoffman Construction Company was founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon as a family-owned general contractor, building apartments, schools and factories. Based in Portland, with offices in Seattle, Hoffman is a leader in specialized construction for transportation facilities such as station and maintenance facilities understanding the importance of maintaining traffic during construction; environmental requirements particularly those that relate to noise and vibration, and utility relocation requirements in the Seattle area. Hoffman has developed detailed procedures to ensure the safety of the traveling public during construction. Hoffman was the general contractor for some of Seattle’s more notable projects such as the Experience Music Project, the new Seattle Library and City Hall. For more information, visit http://www.hoffmancorp.com.

Atkinson Construction

RCI Construction Group

RCI Construction Group was founded in 1978 and is based in Sumner, Washington. RCI specializes in technically difficult projects including deep shaft and pipeline construction, steep slope outfall, and penstock installation. Coupled with comprehensive experience in pier construction, commercial, industrial and residential planned community development, and structural concrete capabilities, RCI brings all aspects of infrastructure construction and rehabilitation to the utility field. By virtue of owning one of the region's largest inventories of construction equipment ranging from sophisticated microtunneling machinery to specialized trenching and pile driving equipment, RCI is able to complete each project more efficiently and cost effectively. RCI’s experience includes utility projects such as the Denny Way Elliot West Pipelines and the City of Tacoma’s Second Supply Pipeline. For more information, visit www.rci-group.com.

Concrete Technology Corporation

VANIR Construction Management

David Evans and Associates

Kleinfelder, Inc.

PanGeo

Buckland & Taylor

PB Transit and Rail Systems, Inc.

H.W. Lochner, Inc.

Praha Strategies, Inc. (Patrick Kylen)

Alcatel Transport Automation, Inc.

Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc.

Berger/ABAM Engineers, Inc.

EDAW

Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK)

Wilson Ihrig & Assoc., Inc.

White Electrical

Holmes Electric

PSI

Doris Locke & Associates

Wow, quite a list! If I missed one, please let me know. It will take me a while to look at each of these companies.

What's my point in all this? I believe that the citizens of Seattle should be the owners and gain the financial benefits from the construction and operation of the monorail system. But I support the capitalist system. So that means to me that we should be owners of the companies that are getting the Billion dollar contract, so we can keep an eye on what the companies are doing and we can have a voice in the decisions they make. That's what this blog is all about.

Sources:

http://www.elevated.org/
http://www.cascadiamonorail.com/
http://www.opensecrets.org/