Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcu
The CTA has essentially turned a blind eye to overwhelming evidence of bid collusion on several projects.
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Do you have any basis for this statement or are you just throwing it out there with no backup whatsoever? Do you think there was collusion by the initial 2 Brown Line bidders, when their bids differed by about $100 million and both got thrown out? In the end neither of them took a single penny of Brown Line work. How about the Douglas Blue Line job in which you had three bidders in reasonable proximity? Do you even know if the companies working the Brown Line projects are making money doing so? I don't know the slightest information about Madrids transit system, or how they acheive the costs they do. I do know that the engineers estimates for infrastructure construction in the US and in turn Chicago is often dramatically off. I could get into the reasons if you would like, but there is no single simple answer. Working on an active transit system, in a union environment, with designs required to meet ADA approval, with all kinds of restrictions on impacting trains especially during rush periods is expensive, period.
You mentioned contractors sitting in their trucks - a couple things - as VLF said contractors are signed to lump sum contracts - their employees sitting around doing nothing is simply bleeding their bottom line, not the CTAs. That being said contractors are only allowed to work on CTA tracks with flaggers during weekdays between 9AM and 3PM, so as not to impact morning rush hour. Losing nearly 25% of an average work day most definitely impacts costs, and odds are pretty good this is not factored into an engineers estimate.
In the end, contractors will bid based on two things - what the job costs, and what the market will bear - based on how hungry they are for work and how hungry their competitors are for work. Contractors are in the business of making money, and making a profit on a job is not collusion but good business on the contractors end.