Seattle cancels streetcar contract NEWSWIRE

SEATTLE — The Seattle Department of Transportation said Monday it is cancelling a contract to buy new streetcars for the proposed Center City Connector line, but it still plans to go ahead with construction of the line through downtown.

In an announcement on its website, SDOT said it had informed manufacturer CAF USA that it has cancelled an order placed in 2017 for 10 streetcars at a cost of $52 million.

“Resuming work now under the old vehicle contract could have significantly increased project costs due to our new project timeline,” SDOT’s announcement said. “The City has the flexibility to terminate the contract at any time which may save the City considerable money in the long run.”

The current timeline calls for the 1-mile streetcar line to be operating in 2026, considerably later than the original date. With projected costs ballooning Mayor Jenny Durkan put the project on hold last year pending a review; that includes, the city says, a stop-work order on production of the cars.

Among problems uncovered in the review was one having to do with the cars themselves, that they might be too long or too heavy for platforms and a maintenance facility.

The mayor and council have agreed to proceed with the project, authorizing an additional $9 million to be spent on new design and engineering work.

“This work will help inform the new vehicle procurement and include a variety of necessary steps that align with the potential vehicle design specifications, such as making sure the streetcar platforms, maintenance facility, and roadway structures are ready for the new streetcars because many of the streetcar vehicles currently being manufactured are longer and heavier than our current streetcars,” the SDOT announcement said. “A new bidding process will give companies a chance to propose plans to build vehicles that are closer to the size and weight of our existing streetcars.”

The agency didn’t say when the new bidding will commence. “In the coming months, we’ll be updating the design specifications for streetcar vehicles to take into account the existing vehicle market in the United States and some of our system’s specialized needs,” the announcement said. “Once this work has been done, we’ll move forward by issuing an updated Request for Proposals for streetcar procurement.”

An SDOT spokesman said the city has already paid CAF USA $5.4 million for initial design work of the streetcar vehicles. It wasn’t known whether the city tried to renegotiate its contract with CAF.

The Center City Connector is designed to link two existing and operating streetcar lin3s, one running from Pioneer Square and the International District up First Hill, the other running through the South Lake Union neighborhood. Some utility relocation work has already been done on the proposed line.

The existing streetcar operations use trains made by Inekon.