There is one bright spot in the December “termination for convenience” of the main contracting joint venture on the Boston area’s Green Line Extension light-rail project: No one is pointing fingers at the contractor as the key culprit behind the project’s soaring cost, which currently is $700 million to $1 billion over its roughly $2-billion budget. In fact, Peter S. White, the chief executive of J.F. White Contracting Co., the joint venture’s main partner, hopes to return to work on the project in the future.
更重要的是，怀特为所谓的建筑经理/总承包商（CM/GC）辩护，用于建造4.7英里长的绿线扩展。该方法允许指挥该项目的机构马萨诸塞州湾运输局（MBTA）随着承包商的投入，随着设计的开发，随着设计的开发，将工作按包装进行测序。
怀特在一份声明中，其公司位于弗雷明汉（Framingham），他说Sysem在其他项目中成功工作。18luck官网怀特说，使用CM/GC方法，White Contracting及其合作伙伴Skanska和Kiewit与MBTA“努力且协作”，以提供“公平，准确的价格”，并根据所提供的“设计”有效地建造。
It isn’t clear what went wrong, if anything, with the contracting and project delivery method. Frank DePaola, the MBTA general manager, in October warned of “very challenging” cost growth and raised the prospect of changing or abandoning the project. He didn’t say (as some suspect) that, in the MBTA’s rush to meet a court deadline, the agency hurried ahead without a completed design and full knowledge of final costs. The authority also terminated HDR/Gilbane, the project’s design oversight consultant.
Under the CM/GC procurement method, MBTA in 2013 awarded the main construction contract to the White-Skanska-Kiewit venture based on a two-part proposal consisting of qualifications and price, with the award based on best value.
According to the Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation, the joint venture’s contract value exceeded the project budget on three out of four of the initial major contract packages. The contract values for three other packages have not yet been determined or awarded, and the next package, budgeted at $387 million, appears to have been fully designed but not awarded. The anticipated price of this package may have produced the sticker shock that halted the contract.
Fee Calculations
Apparently, the agreed-upon award prices were treated as guaranteed maximum prices (GMP), with the joint venture’s fee based on its costs and the value of the work performed. Under this hybrid type of contracting, the contractor’s profit rises in proportion to the project’s cost.
批评家现在拥有第二次猜测MBTA的奢侈，将项目分为细分市场，未能获得整体GMP，并且在设计之前开始工作。根据公共政策研究小组Pioneer Institute的一份报告，CM/GC系统几乎没有激励承包商限制总项目成本。该研究所认为，“ CM/GC - White-Skanska-Kiewit-在不提交价格估算的情况下竞标。”
A few years ago, the Pioneer Institute was a plaintiff in a clean-air lawsuit involving Boston’s infamously overbudget Central Artery/Tunnel project, and the settlement included extending the Green Line. Failing to build the Green Line Extension would cost Massachusetts federal transportation funds, but meeting the deadline could drive the costs higher, according to a 2011 Federal Transit Administration report, .
MBTA的财政和管理控制委员会于1月11日宣布已雇用了韦斯顿和桑普森执行官杰克·赖特（Jack Wright），他是前国家运输官员，他从事“大挖掘”工作，以监督该项目。现在将评估各种价值工程和削减。董事会还为一系列关于封存的绿线扩展的命运的大型讨论设定了时间表，并将在4月7日提出新的预算估计。
