A LOOK AHEAD * After viewing the route, the new head of the troubled Pasadena Blue Line light rail project looks forward to . . . : Starting on the Right Track

It is the biggest challenge that Rick Thorpe has ever undertaken. After building light rail transit systems in San Diego and Salt Lake City, Thorpe soon will be responsible for transforming dreams of a modern streetcar line between Union Station and Pasadena into reality.

As he peered out the window of a Pasadena police helicopter recently, the magnitude of the job came into sharp focus.

From the front seat of the Bell Jet Ranger, Thorpe saw for the first time the winding route the rail line will follow as it leaves the high-rises of downtown Los Angeles behind and climbs toward the San Gabriel Valley.

Suddenly, the challenge before him became much more daunting. “It’s enormous,” Thorpe said. “It’s overwhelming right now.”

On Oct. 1, Thorpe will become chief executive officer of the region’s newest transportation agency, the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority. His mission: to finish the light rail line that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stopped building after spending upward of a quarter of a billion dollars.

With a much tighter budget and a tough schedule, Thorpe must deliver on the Pasadena rail authority’s promise to complete the 13.7-mile rail line for another $434 million. If he can deliver the entire project on time and on budget, it will be a first in the troubled history of Los Angeles rail projects.

After financial problems forced the MTA to halt work last year on the Pasadena line and subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City areas, state lawmakers stripped Los Angeles County’s transit agency of responsibility for the Pasadena project. The Pasadena authority was created to build the rail line. The MTA will run the trains after the line is built.

Pasadena City Councilman Paul Little, chairman of the rail authority, said much more is at stake than merely the Pasadena line. “If this project fails,” Little said, “there will be no other large-scale transit project in Los Angeles.”

On his aerial tour, Thorpe saw why the pressure is on. For instance, it takes a keen imagination to trace where the elevated tracks will run from Union Station to an above-ground station in Chinatown.

The route becomes much more obvious after it leaves Chinatown and crosses the Los Angeles River on a newly constructed bridge. From there, the tracks will follow an old Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe right-of-way through an industrial area a few blocks below the Pasadena Freeway.

Challenging Rail Route

Beyond the freeway, the landscape quickly changes as the tracks pass through crowded residential neighborhoods below the Southwest Museum and behind the commercial district of Huntington Park.

The line crosses high above the Pasadena Freeway on the reconstructed Arroyo Seco bridge and enters South Pasadena. The former freight line briefly disappears from view as it passes close to homes in a tree-lined residential area. Emerging a short distance later, the tracks run through tricky intersections, traverse old neighborhoods and skirt a commercial district.

The old railroad route enters Pasadena near the city’s power plant and runs near office buildings, Huntington Memorial Hospital and cavernous warehouses where Rose Parade floats are built and decorated.

A few blocks up from Pasadena’s historic train station, construction will be more difficult. A subterranean trench must be dug for the rail line under several major streets, including Colorado Boulevard, and in a narrow passage through Old Pasadena.

Beyond the historic district, the route runs directly under a new housing development before entering a curving tunnel that leads to the middle of the congested Foothill Freeway. Once there, the line follows the freeway to the last three Pasadena stations.

While Sierra Madre Villa Avenue in East Pasadena marks the end of the line, it is only temporary for those with long-range vision. As the helicopter heads to the east, John Dyer, one of the Pasadena project’s interim chief executives, shows Thorpe the route to extend the rail line all the way to Claremont.

For now, though, the goal is to finish the line between Los Angeles and Pasadena by the summer of 2003. “It’s all on your shoulders now,” Dyer said with a smile.

“It’s going to be a pretty straightforward project,” Thorpe replies. “We just need to get going on it.”

After immersing himself in the details of the project, the 50-year-old civil engineer said he has a greater understanding of what lies ahead.

During his long career in San Diego, Thorpe was the director of engineering and construction for the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, which built that city’s popular trolley system. The light rail project became a model for construction of a cost-effective mass transit system.

In 1995, Thorpe joined the engineering firm of Parsons-Brinckerhoff and moved to Salt Lake City to become project manager for a light rail line due to open in December. The project is months ahead of schedule and millions of dollars under budget.

Exhilarated by his success in Utah, Thorpe sought the Pasadena job. “It’s an opportunity for me to lead the charge, to get a project that is long overdue underway in the shortest possible time.”

He is determined to avoid the pitfalls that have led to construction problems and cost overruns on the Los Angeles subway project. “We have a very limited budget, a budget with some deficits,” he said. “We have to minimize changes. We can’t have a lot of issues pop up after we’re under construction.”

Until recently, Los Angeles architect William Dahl was the MTA’s representative on the Pasadena rail authority board. Dahl brought construction experience to the table after being appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan while he was chairman of the MTA.

Last week, the MTA’s new chairwoman, County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, appointed veteran Eastside activist Vivien Bonzo to take Dahl’s place.

“The problem they are going to be confronted with is the significant lack of experience of the board members in construction,” Dahl said. “They don’t have it. I don’t know where they are going to get it.”

Dahl said the project needs someone “who says no to the changes, a tightfisted son of a bitch. I don’t know if Thorpe is the guy.”

Thorpe said he has no problem saying no to contractors. In some professional circles, Thorpe said, he’s been “accused of giving the industry a bad name by doing it too cheaply.”

Dahl was one of two board members who did not support Thorpe for the top job. Having been chosen on a narrow 3-2 vote, Thorpe insisted on a series of protections in his long-term contract through the end of 2003.

At the outset, Thorpe will be paid $180,000 a year. He will receive bonuses and other financial incentives if he achieves specific goals during construction. The authority will provide relocation expenses, health and life insurance, retirement contributions and a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Little said Thorpe was selected because of his qualifications, temperament, experience and outlook.

‘Best Project Manager’

Transportation consultant Paul Taylor said he recommended Thorpe for the job because “he’s the best project manager in the country.”

Taylor, who was deputy director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission in the 1980s, said Thorpe was very helpful in those days offering advice on construction of the Los Angeles to Long Beach light rail line. He said Thorpe has shown “an ability to say, ‘No, we don’t need that. There’s a cheaper way to do this.’ ” Taylor said the transportation industry will be monitoring his progress, because the Pasadena line is “the last opportunity we have to demonstrate that a rail line in Los Angeles can be done in a cost-effective way.”

Thorpe is aware that the MTA spent heavily on engineering services and overhead while the Pasadena project was under its control.

“His eyes are wide open,” Taylor said. “He understands why a quarter of a billion dollars has been spent on it.”

Charles Stark, the MTA’s chief of construction and a finalist for the job that Thorpe got, said the agency has spent $234.2 million on the Pasadena project so far and is holding another $17 million in reserve.

Stark said the biggest expense has been engineering for the Pasadena line, its stations and structures. MTA has paid $112 million to a consortium of engineering firms, and another $11.1 million is in dispute. Parsons-Brinckerhoff is part of the group, called Engineering Management Consultants.

In addition, MTA spent $37.1 million to build the new bridge across the Los Angeles River and to retrofit all but one of the other bridges along the line. The agency spent just under $30 million acquiring property and another $19.6 million to pay for overhead expenses on the project.

“The way we do business is going to be different,” Thorpe said. Both he and members of the Pasadena authority’s board are committed to doing things better, faster and cheaper than has been done before in Los Angeles.

“We’re going to prove that it can be done in a cost-effective manner,” he said. “I’ve done it in San Diego. We were able to pull it off in Salt Lake. The ultimate challenge is to try to pull it off in L.A. . . . It’s in everyone’s best interest to make this work.”

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Taking the Helm

Faced with a tight budget and a tough schedule, Rick Thorpe will have his hands full overseeing construction of a long-awaited light rail line between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. The winding 13.7mile route generally follows an old Santa Fe rail line from Union station to the San Gabriel Valley. Below is the line’s planned route, with white dots marking the stations.