Metro's construction coordinators really 'dig' their job

If there is a road or street anywhere in King County that is being paved, pounded, or painted, assume that Richard Garcia and Jim Kost know exactly what is being done, who is doing it, and when it is scheduled to be complete.

As King County Metro Transit’s construction coordinators, Garcia and Kost are in a unique position to know the state of the roads in any city or jurisdiction in the county. It is their job to scrutinize all road-construction and road-blocking projects – no matter how big or how small – and then calculate all the ways that work will impact Metro’s routes and passengers.

Metro's construction coordinators keep the buses running no matter what the disruption.

"We’re like a clearinghouse for government agencies, utilities, and private contractors working in the public right-of-way," says Garcia, a former bus driver who has been a construction coordinator for seven years. "From pothole repairs to light rail construction, we keep track of it all."

By contacting contractors, attending pre-construction meetings, and coordinating with jurisdictions, Garcia and Kost help reduce delays and inconvenience for transit passengers, and minimize damage to Metro facilities. Managers say that helps Metro save thousands of dollars each year and maintains Metro’s local and national reputation as a top-ranked transit agency.

This is a particularly busy time of year for the construction coordinators. Holiday road construction moratoriums have been lifted in the bigger cities, and around the county the coming of spring heralds a new construction season.

Jerry Rutledge, Metro’s manager of power and facilities, says many contractors are unaware of how street closures and traffic disruptions impact transit service, and some contractors just ignore issues.

"The value of this team and the vital work they do cannot be over estimated," said Rutledge. "Their continuous and comprehensive internal communication and notification is critical in allowing us to have an effective response to potential service disruptions."

Anyone working in right-of-way areas such as streets and sidewalks is required to first get the permission of the governing jurisdiction, which usually provides a checklist of other agencies and departments that must approve a work plan. Typically, those checklists include police and fire departments, school districts, Metro Transit, and any other public agency that could be affected by the work.

Garcia says when the Metro construction coordinators receive notice of a new project, they analyze it to see how the work will affect bus routing, location of bus stops, passenger access to the stops, traffic flow along the routes, and clearance around trolley overhead wires.

"Then we contact whoever is doing the work to negotiate ways that minimize the impacts to public transit," says Garcia. "Once we have an agreed-upon plan, we put it in writing and develop an operational strategy to be used by Metro, and shared with Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, and Community Transit."

Jim Kost (left) and Richard Garcia.

The notification process just within Metro is extensive. Garcia says each project creates different impacts, so the team has to decide who needs to know what. The list of Metro groups to notify include the service supervisors on the street, the rider information office, the radio communications center, individual bus bases, the crews that maintain bus stops and shelters, the trolley overhead crew, and various other groups, managers and supervisors.

There are a variety of actions the coordinators will recommend to ease the impacts for transit, such as rerouting buses, temporarily moving stops, or just making bus drivers and passengers aware of changing traffic conditions in a particular area. The contractor or agency doing the work pays for most of the costs associated with the disruption.

It’s easy to see how a big project like laying tracks for light rail or repaving Interstate 5 can disrupt bus service, but the coordinators must also keep track of hundreds of small jobs. Projects involving cranes must have a plan for establishing a 10-foot clearance area around trolley wires. Sidewalk replacement often results in establishing temporary bus stops. Even installing Santa’s house outside the Seattle Nordstrom store every November, requires a plan to keep buses out of the westbound curb lane on Pine Street.

In 2006, the two construction coordinators responded to more than 3,000 projects within the 2,000 square miles of Metro’s service area. Garcia says that involves emailing about 50 separate daily notifications to Metro staff.

The team currently includes Melissa Adams, while Kost is on another assignment. Although the general public is unaware of what they do, the coordinators have celebrity status within Metro. They are the "go-to guys" when drivers, supervisors and managers have questions about what’s going on in the streets. And, other agencies frequently tap their brains for a contact in the region’s transportation network.