BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    



                                                                  AB 1760
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   April 28, 2010

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                 AB 1760 (Blumenfield) - As Amended:  April 19, 2010

          Policy Committee:                               
          TransportationVote:10-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program:  
          No     Reimbursable:              

           SUMMARY  

          This bill:

          1)Reenacts, until January 1, 2016, Caltrans' authorization to  
            enter into design-sequencing contracts. 

          2)Requires Caltrans, when using design-sequencing contracting,  
            to incorporate information on such projects into its annual  
            contracts status report.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          1)Minor absorbable costs for Caltrans to incorporate  
            design-sequencing contract information into its annual  
            contracts report.

          2)Potential significant cost savings from expediting project  
            completion using design-sequencing.  

           COMMENTS  

           1)Background  .  This bill reenacts design-sequencing authority  
            for Caltrans that expired on January 1, 2010. Under the  
            traditional design-bid-build contracting, construction of any  
            portion of the project cannot commence until Caltrans has  
            developed complete plans and specifications for the project,  
            placed the contract out for bid, and awarded the contract.   
            Design-sequencing is intended to expedite a project by  
            allowing construction on one phase of the project to be  
            started while subsequent phases are still under design.









                                                                  AB 1760
                                                                  Page  2

            Design-sequencing was first authorized by AB 405  
            (Knox)/Chapter 378 of 1999, which allowed Caltrans to use this  
            method on a pilot basis for up to six projects.  AB 2607  
            (Knox)/Chapter 340 of 2000 increased the pilot program limit  
            to 12 projects.  Of the 12 design-sequencing projects  
            authorized in this initial pilot, Caltrans initiated 10  
            projects before the end of this phase. 

            SB 1210 (Torlakson)/Chapter 795 of 2004, established a second  
            phase of the pilot program and authorized an additional 12  
            design-sequencing projects between January 2005 and January  
            2010. Of those, Caltrans initiated 11 projects.  Last year, AB  
            732 (Jeffries) which would have extended the second phase  
            until January 1, 2012, was held on Suspense in Senate  
            Appropriations.  

           2)Purpose  .  In a March 2008 interim report on the pilot program,  
            Caltrans compared six of the initial design-sequencing  
            projects against nine control projects. Results for these  
            initial projects were mixed. However, according to Caltrans  
            staff, findings from some of the recent projects are more  
            positive, due largely to the refined criteria Caltrans is  
            using to select appropriate design-sequencing projects.   
            Application of such "lessons-learned" should enable to the  
            department to strategically select those projects for which  
            this approach can be cost-effective.

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081