31. Elevating our rail system
Taking light rail to new heights! In this episode of Storylines, hosts Juliana and Ricky talk to Andrew Haines and Vanessa Quinto from Jacobs Engineering about the design and construction of the new elevated Metro Parkway station. Then, hear from riders who attended the Northwest Phase II extension grand opening.
Transcript
NWEII Opening Draft 3
Brittany:Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of your daily commute?
Juliana:Or how transportation impacts the community you call home?
Brittany:Maybe you want to explore outside your community and don't know where to start.
Juliana:Well, you're in luck because this is where you hop on.
Brittany:I'm Brittany Hoffman.
Juliana:And I'm Juliana Vazquez-Keating,
Brittany:We work in Communications for Valley Metro. And together, we'll discover all the ways that public transit enhances lives across the cities we serve.
Juliana:And we might even make some new friends along the way.
Brittany:Welcome to Storylines.
Juliana:Welcome back listeners to another episode of Storylines. This is a special episode for a few reasons. Not only are we talking about something pretty exciting, I'm also joined by a very special guest host. While not new to Storylines, it's been some time since he's joined us. Welcome back to my guest cohost, Ricky Tejada, who is also Valley Metro's lead Customer Experience Coordinator.
Ricky:
Thanks, Juliana. Always happy to be here, especially for this episode. It's only February, and we've already had a pretty eventful 2024 so far. Just last month we celebrated a major milestone for our rail system.
Juliana:That's right, Ricky. We expanded our light rail system for the first time in five years. We opened the Northwest Extension Phase II just last month.
Ricky:Anytime we open a new extension, it's always a big deal, but this extension in particular included many firsts for our rail system including our first elevated station, a rail only bridge over a major freeway, and structured parking.
Juliana:And because this project included so many firsts, there was a lot of planning that went into it.
Ricky:You got that right. Let's hear from two people who helped bring this project to life.
Andrew:My name is Andrew Haines, I'm a vice president and project manager for Jacobs Engineering.
Vanessa:My name is Vanessa Quinto, and I am the project manager for the design services during construction for the Northwest Extension Phase II project.
Ricky:Super excited to have both of you here. Could you please briefly describe the process of creating Valley Metro's first elevated station and rail only bridge across the I-17?
Andrew:So, Ricky I’m not sure I can briefly do that. The actual, Vanessa and I were talking about this earlier, is that the setup for what transpired can't be brief, but I'll do as best I can. You know, when we started the project, there was a curved bridge over I-17 with a station ending parallel to I-17. What we ended up with was almost a straight bridge across that went right into the Metro Center area development, but the process of getting that changed was really difficult. There's a lot of moving parts, you know, coordinating with Valley Metro, coordinating with the city of Phoenix coordinating with the owner of the property, the Metro Center property. The first things that the entire team did the city, Valley Metro, our partners, PGHone the systems designer, we all sat down together and came up with probably 150 different ideas of how to save money. Some of those were to straighten the alignment out to reduce some of the things that were on top of the bridge in the planning to make it a more simple structure. So, the team ended up coming up with over 60 Million dollars in value engineering that were accepted by the city and by the agency. But we looked at making things more compact. For example, the alignment was going to be up against I-17 and straightening it out. We integrated the transit center with the station, so that it really functions asone1. We also got away from a historic building. We didn't have to mess with the old super salad building. The midcentury structure that's just to the north of the existing station now. Actually getting to the station itself, there was no prototype for an elevated station. None existed. So we initially started thinking about, do we want to look at, using the, typical three column section of the three cluster section that Value Metro typically uses for its aggrade stations. But then we realized in an elevated station, everyone's going to be super exposed to heat and the sun and on an elevated station there's just no place to get away from that. And eventually that just led to having it entirely shaded. and I think, you know, you'll find in the middle of summer, the entire platform is completely in the shade from all day long, which we thought was just going to be so, so good for the, the passengers. The other thing in covering the entire platform, we were able to take all the columns out of the platform itself. So you have a clear line of sight for the entire length of platform, which I think creates more open, a more safe, type of environment for your passengers. Those are just some of the things, that we had to, get into, as we develop the bridge and the station Vanessa probably wants to jump in on a few things as well.
Vanessa:Andrew, I think you did a great job covering a lot of these things. I'd say one of the things that we consider when we develop the transit center was the connection with the pedestrian usage and connection to future development too. So, just realigning that parallel from the freeway into the Metro Center area where it is right now, it was a big deal and we're really, really happy with how it turned out one of the things that we know, getting into this project is this is the first light rail extension project crossing the I-17 bridge. So it was really connecting all the community west of the I-17 into downtown and into, you know, the East Valley. So it was a huge deal for us. And I think our team did a great job. We had a lot of support from Valley Metro and the City of Phoenix. So it was a great teamwork to get this done.
Andrew:There was an awful lot of back and forth, a lot of cooperation between, you know, what we could do, how much would it cost? What kind of money did we have to spend? Just a lot of really good teamwork. Cooperation between all of the entities on the complete design team, not just Jacobs, but our, partner team, the partner firms that we had, the city, Valley Metro, ADOT all really had a focus on, we called it actually finding a way to yes, you know, we, we've come up with an idea. How can we get there? What are the things we can all do to make it work to make it successful and that kind of commitment. To again, to finding that way to yes, was so instrumental in the bridge design in getting the, you know, everyone's cooperation on that and getting the station designed getting it to work as well as it did.
Juliana:I love that finding a way to yes, I'm going to use that. That's such a good, motto. So what I'm hearing is there was actually a different design and you guys kind of had to change things up in the middle of the process.
Andrew:We did. Especially at the end of line, it was a curved steel bridge over I-17 with a lot of piers. And one of the things we realized is that it was driving a lot of cost to do that. There's some special fabrication processes that need to occur with steel bridges. And then also we had the, it was a Park-and-Ride lot there, so it was very large footprint of land that we were looking to acquire on the west side of I-17. So the thing, you know, as we straighten the bridge out that allowed for many different types of bridge structures that we could look at that. We could choose. So every time you, have more options, the price is going to come down. And then we, decreased the footprint. We went with the parking garage instead of a surface lot, which, there's many benefits that we actually brought a lot of the patrons much closer to the light rail itself. In fact, if you're on the top floor of the parking garage, you can just walk right across to the platform. Super convenient. Instead of I think we had, you know, 800-foot walks. From the furthest locations of a surface slot. So, again, we were able to find some efficiencies and a lot of those things that we did.
Ricky:Making all these changes in the middle of the project must have been a challenge. What other challenges did you face during the process?
Andrew:One of the challenges in coordinating with ADOT, for example. ADOT certainly didn't mandate no piers in the middle of I-17, but it was really on their wish list. And it was on their wish list because anytime you put a peer in the middle of a freeway, you're going to be interrupting traffic, altering traffic patterns, causing delays for people And so on ADOT's wish list was boy, if you could avoid putting a pier and I-17, we'd be delighted. We’re able to do that. We used a different type of bridge. We used, a steel tub girder and we were able to span 250 feet over I-17. We did that in construction. We had the freeway closed for a weekend, a 48 hour period where the erector came in and built the entire bridge over the freeway in that single weekend. And then open traffic back up to the traveling public, on Monday morning. So just trying to minimize those interruptions to the public was really important. That was a I think a great challenge that we overcame by that design and that erection of the bridge, the piers, on either side of the bridge are… they're 60 feet deep into the ground. And one of them is right next to a drainage channel that ADOT had just put in. And I think our drilled shaft was only 3 feet away from that. So we had to figure out a way to not impact that drainage channel and be able to build what we needed to build. We had a great Geotech engineer and again, a great contractor to build things. So a lot of these things were successful because of that, but Vannessa why don't you chime in on some challenges? Cause you lived a lot during construction.
Vanessa:I did, it was 3 years and, you know, we have our typical challenges throughout meeting schedule and all of that, but I would say. This project specifically, there was a lot of many first for Valley Metro, you know, obviously the first elevated station that included, new escalator, elevator to something that our system never really had, so, just coming up with the drawings and specifications and criteria for that during design and during construction. It wasn't an easy thing, right? It was also the first Park-and-Ride structure that we did for Valley Metro. So all of those were added challenges to it. You see the station right now. It's great, but there was so many different disciplines involved with that and say, if you miss a conduit, or you miss a line or pipeline or something, it has triggering effects. So, during construction, you know, we had to ensure that everything was accounted for, and it was just really planning, like, 10 step ahead, right? You know, we're building this columns, but the columns have all these conduits and one of the efforts that we didn't want to have any exposed pipes, right? And that was something that during our design. We said, you know, we, we want to have everything, so that it looks nice and it looks intentional. So, during construction, we make sure that everything was accounted for as we built it from the bottom up.
Andrew:Just to jump in on another challenge was, you know, when we started this job. And we're looking to put a station in the kind of the Metro Center mall area. There was a challenge of people were saying, why are you doing that? That the mall's dead, there's nothing there. And, you know, I think actually in our proposal, one of the things we mentioned was kind of, if you build it, they will come, if you put something there, if there's a station, that's at like an entrance to this large space in downtown Phoenix. Somebody is going to see that as a tremendous opportunity. And it is very satisfying when, you're not even finished the project and this developer is already in making plans for a huge development in Phoenix. That's just gonna to transform that area for years to come.
Juliana:Absolutely. You touched on that and we still get so many questions. Like, why would you have a light rail station at a dead mall? And, you know, we know that this area is going to be redeveloped. We know that with transit comes development and we know that it's coming.
Andrew:Yeah.
Vanessa:Yeah one thing I forgot to mention one of the other challenges we had was the lighting on the bridge. You know, you seen it. There is beautiful lighting at the station, on the bridge to showing the top girders and everything. So the challenge was that we had a limited budget on that right? So, we started with this vision and it was really bringing the team, bringing the lighting supplier, bringing the contractor, bringing our lighting architects. And it was a team effort. We went back and forth multiple times to come up with a package that would still meet the intent, but also be cost effective too. And I think what we had out there was really, really a great balance of both things.
Juliana:And it looks really awesome. And I love that you can change the colors and it's just fun to look at.
Andrew:Yeah. I think the colors are only limited by your imagination, I think there's, there's so much ability to have flexibility in the colors in what gets lighted and how. It could be really fun.
Vanessa:Well, one of the things that we were going through the design of the lighting was, you know, we want to celebrate Phoenix, right? There are so many events that we have in the Valley, could be the Super Bowl could be all the sports events that we have and just be able to change it and celebrate some of those milestones. It's a huge deal.
Andrew:Yeah. And our hope is actually when we have the Super Bowl here, when we have the Final Four, that Goodyear blimps going to be circling overhead and it's going to pan down on that station and go Valley Metro's new station to downtown. And,I think it's just great recognition for, Phoenix for Valley Metro.
Juliana:Absolutely.
Ricky:Yeah, I mean, after all these years on this project, how do you think that it turned out?
Andrew:I can't actually go near that station without getting a smile on my face the whole project. As I mentioned before, we developed some of the models and we had the 3D renderings and we did the videos and the videos, you, you're actually kind of like, standing on a train and then you get off the train, you go down the escalator and it looks a lot like what is out there now. We had seen renderings of the artwork up the stairs, the great work by, Mr. Balcells, but to actually see it in person, to see it at night, the renderings really didn't do it justice. It exceeded our expectations, really and I've told many people this before I've done many projects in my 26, 7 years of work. This is absolutely been my, all-time favorite project, up to this point. My next project will certainly be my all-time favorite after that. But up to this point, it has been my all-time favorite project to work on both from a teammate perspective, working with colleagues Valley Metro with the City of Phoenix with ADOT with the entire team. Just outstanding top to bottom start to finish the commitment to outstanding quality to having fun. The project team had a ton of fun. That was one of our goals, but to come in on time. Slightly under budget, it brings a smile on my face every time I see it.
Juliana:What about you, Vanessa?
Vanessa:Well, seeing it from construction all the way ground up, it's just amazes me that, I mean, it's 3 years and I'm still trying to go through photos and putting a timelapse. And, you know, there's a lot of presentations, a lot of requests that we've been asked to join. I am still awe just thinking about it, just looking at it, just standing in there. We invited our design team before the grand opening, and just everybody seeing that and just being able to showcase that it was just such a great feeling, you know, just a lot of pride from our team and, I know Valley Metro is really happy with it and the City of Phoenix is really, happy about it. So just a lot of joy, we were extremely happy, extremely proud of the project.
Juliana:So how did it feel to ride the extension for the first time?
Vanessa:It was such an amazing feeling. My family joined my two teenage girls, they came with us and, you know, my in-laws I actually had the opportunity to ride on the first train, but, I waited until everybody got up there and it's like, I have to do this with my family because, you know, that so much hard work put into it and that was such a great feeling to be able to share that with them and just say, hey, you know, mom did this and that's part of this great project. So. It was amazing.
Andrew:We started design in July of 2018. So, it's been a big part of my life for the past almost six years. I hadn't been on the train at all until opening day. Even though I know they've been running trains, I know some people had been on, walked across the bridge many times and doing some inspections and looking at things. So I've been on the bridge, but it was truly a thrill to get on that train and to go out over the bridge down the ramp to the station at 25th and Mountain View. Again, that's so many emotions from being on a project for so long. To see it completed to see it completed well, to just have so many fond memories of great teammates, it was nice. it was very exciting, very fulfilling.
Juliana:And so many people came out to celebrate with us, so that was super exciting.
Andrew:I was stunned by the number of people I've been to some of these where there've been a couple hundred and that's great, but it was so great to see so many people there. And I think that's part of the importance of Metro Center, that it has in the hearts of Phoenicians. At the opening ceremonies, I think, Representative Stanton mentioned Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and just so much, so much a part of of Phoenicians’ life. and their experiences growing up, so to see another chapter of that start again, it's, it's exciting.
Vanessa:And also for us, it was almost like, family reunion in a way, because we had a lot of people that, you know, worked on the project and they have moved on to different projects or moved on to different things. And just seeing some of the people that we worked with the last few years, it was pretty awesome. And, you know, you turn around and you see someone that we worked before. That was such a great feeling.
Andrew:I definitely want to follow up on what Vanessa just said, because I think it's really important, for what happened on Northwest Extension II, but also what can happen on other projects is that we had a really consistent team throughout the entire project, I think, you know, almost 90 percent of the team that started working on this project was there at the end. It's not that people just didn't move on or, you know, that they were stuck in their positions, but the teams was together. We had a lot of history together. But we also, we use that history to do good things. So, I think that consistency really helped the team.
Ricky:It's great to hear how by working together We were able to overcome these challenges and create a beautiful piece of Phoenix history But before we go, is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Andrew:I'd like to say most is to the City of Phoenix, to, Marcus Coleman, Jim Tashner, Tony Santana, all the people that we really worked so intensely with day in and day out, Steve Williams, thank you for. the trust that you put in us, to deliver this for you. You know, it was a lot of difficult days, but it was again, so fulfilling in the end. It was great to work with, people again that find a way to yes, we use that a lot in the 6 years that we worked on this. but it, really was true. You know, how could we get to the result that we wanted to. Everyone worked toward that goal. It was so fulfilling.
Vanessa:Well, to add to Andrew's statement, we are very thankful for the opportunity and for the trust that it's given to us and we really enjoy working for, you know, this transit projects and bringing, this to the community and providing a great project to our clients, so we definitely look forward to the next few projects and the next project for sure. But you know, in the future, that's something that we really want to continue working for.
Juliana:We’re also excited to see the growth that this, you know, extension will bring to the area, so definitely exciting for Valley Metro to see that.
Andrew:Absolutely. Yeah. it'll be so interesting to see how, bus rapid transit integrates into this. How the rapid buses, the city buses, how this becomes, you know, maybe a true transit hub where people can live in the north or west part of the town can come in, hop on the train, you know, read their phone on the way to work instead of, trying to read it in traffic. While they’re sitting on the train. Yeah and then to see how Metro Center itself will redevelop. it'll be really exciting to see that transformation over the years.
Juliana:
Ricky. I knew a lot of work went into this project, but hearing just how much planning goes on behind the scenes is incredible.
Ricky:And that was only a small snapshot. But as you can see from the completed project, Vanessa, Andrew, and their team did an amazing job. We're truly grateful for their hard work.
Juliana:Ricky, you know who else is grateful for this extension? Our riders.
Ricky:Absolutely. We certainly saw the excitement at our opening celebration last month. More than 2,000 people came out to the Thelda Williams Transit Center to celebrate with us. There was food and entertainment, local businesses, prizes, and of course, first rides along the new extension. It was quite a party.
Juliana:It really was. You and I were both at the event and were able to chat with some of our riders about just how excited they were about the opening. But don't take our word for it, let's hear from some of our riders to hear what they're most excited about with the opening of this new extension.
Riders:Hi, I'm here at Northwest Extension II opening. It's beautiful, they have a nice parking structure right next to it that you can just park your car and hop on for a ride all the way down to Mesa Gilbert. I have not ridden this portion yet, I just got here, but I'm excited to ride it. However back in the past, I have written from Tempe station all the way to downtown Phoenix for a basketball game. And it was really convenient that I didn't have to go through traffic or deal with parking. It's just a hop and I'm there. So I love it and I'm excited to ride this today. We just took the train with all the people that were here for the inauguration ceremony, and we only went to the first stop next to the dog park, but all the art that we saw, there was one that looks like a dandelion, and all the art over here was great. The train was really clean, and really smooth, and I had a great time. I'm excited that the light rail is available to go east and west. We live in Tempe and it's nice to be able to go in a different direction. I'd like to see more light rail. And the artwork on the stairs coming up is beautiful. It's a very attractive station. We were excited for this day. It's got extended. It's gonna bring a lot more little business to the community. My son goes to school out here. You can go to Castle n’ Coasters now because it's not gonna get on the train, bring them here. My mom can go to the Walmart. You got Rose Mofford park right here too. He has basketball practice there. His mom plays softball. It's a lot of different stuff and extended a lot more to the side of the town where they need it. I think the light rail was pretty sick because I've never really been on one that was like, you know, above ground. I've mostly been ones underground or on land. So, it's pretty cool to experience this, especially with my dad. And, I just find it really cool, I guess. It's just how I can be on here. I just look out, and I just see a lot of stuff with on this new train. All the art was actually cool. When me and him were walking up, like, the stairs at the station, there was, like, this, like, engraving art on, like, a wall, and it was pretty sick.
Ricky:I talk to riders every day, but my favorite part of the job is hearing their positive experience and their general love for public transit.
Juliana:They are why we do what we do. It's all about the rider experience. And there's so much more in store for 2024.
Ricky:Join us for our next episode of Storylines, when we chat about the history of Prop 400, ahead of the November election. For Valley Metro, I'm Ricky.
Juliana:I'm Juliana.
Ricky:Thanks for riding with us.
Juliana:We'll meet you at the next stop.
Juliana:
Storylines is produced by Alex Tsotsos and Dane Ryals. Peter Corkery is the executive producer. I'm Juliana Vazquez Keating. Thanks for listening.
