Our Regional Transit Authority was created by voters in 1996 to plan, build and operate safe and reliable regional train and bus service.

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2 Our Regional Transit Authority was created by voters in 1996 to plan, build and operate safe and reliable regional train and bus service. Our district stretches 76 miles from Everett to south of Tacoma, and connects the major communities and employment centers in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties. This includes 51 cities and about 2.7 million people. We re also a multi-modal agency with: ST Express buses throughout the region. Sounder Commuter rail between Everett and Seattle and Seattle and Tacoma. As of 2009, Central Link light rail began operations, serving 16 miles and 13 stations between downtown Seattle and SeaTac airport. Some things that make us a little different: - We re growing a 2008 ballot measure called Sound Transit Two will be adding regional express bus and commuter rail service while building up to 36 additional miles of light rail and improving park and rides and features to enhance non motorized access. Another important thing that s not visible on this map is that the shoreline, steep hills and lakes that make the Puget Sound a beautiful place to live, also makes it a challenging place to build. 2

3 Our Regional Transit Authority was created by voters in 1996 to plan, build and operate safe and reliable regional train and bus service. Our district stretches 76 miles from Everett to south of Tacoma, and connect the major communities and employment centers in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties. This includes 51 cities and about 2.7 million people. We re also a multi-modal agency with: ST Express buses throughout the region. Sounder Commuter rail between Everett and Seattle and Seattle and Tacoma. As of 2009, Central Link light rail began operations, serving 16 miles and 13 stations between downtown Seattle and SeaTac airport. Some things that make us a little different: - We re growing a 2008 ballot measure called Sound Transit Two will be adding regional express bus and commuter rail service while building up to 36 additional miles of light rail and improving park and rides and features to enhance non motorized access. Another important thing that s not visible on this map is that the shoreline, steep hills and lakes that make the Puget Sound a beautiful place to live, also makes it a challenging place to build. 3

4 We have very robust metrics for operations but a much less clear picture of our construction impacts. A big focus is creating a baseline Our district stretches 76 miles from Everett to south of Tacoma, and connects the major communities and employment centers in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties. This includes 51 cities and about 2.7 million people. 4

5 Some background on ST and sustainability. We have a robust environmental and sustainability program and as an agency that s growing, we recognize that how we build our projects is an integral part of our sustainability commitment. Sustainability is a required element of design at ST and we like to think that we set the bar high. All major projects must follow our DCM, which includes a chapter on Sustainability that provides guidelines and requirements for sustainable projects. The purpose of this chapter is to implement sustainability with a focus on: - environmental stewardship - Improved environmental performance with a focus on resource conservation - Cost effectiveness and life cycle performance & durability - Enhancing public education and outreach around these issues Currently, we don t have any dedicated budget for sustainability features, and must include them in projects as existing budgets allow. 5

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7 Moving beyond research, we want to decide which tools we be able to implement. We re now working with our consultants to focus on prioritizing the potential actions, and assess them for feasibility. We are focused on exploring what changes to construction best practices are most impactful, but will still retain the diversity of our contractors and not limit competition for small and disadvantaged businesses. Additionally, throughout these two projects we have made sure to keep important partners involved, such as the AGC, the Washington State Department of Ecology, and various groups of small and disadvantaged business such as a local truckers consortium. 7

8 The first project we ve been working on is a survey of current and potential contractors, as well as contractor interviews regarding various construction air emissions factors. Before Sound Transit implements any potential new requirements, we wanted to ensure these requirements would not create an uneven playing field or undue burden for contractors, specifically small, local, and disadvantaged firms. To accomplish this, we decided to survey current and potential contractors to better understand current best practices they re already following to get a snap shot of the state of the industry and to understand the status of their current fleet of vehicles. The second project ongoing right now at Sound Transit related to sustainable construction, are several Sustainable Practice Plan pilot projects. Sustainable practice plans are currently being tested with two upcoming GC/CM construction contracts. GC/CM is the most flexible contracting mechanism and allows us to negotiate the sustainable practice plan stipulations as part of the pre-construction conditions. Back Pocket - Otherwise with Design Build = project requirement or Design Bid Build contract requirement. 8

9 The bulk of the construction air emissions project is a survey to current and potential contractors. The survey was built through survey monkey, and sent as an RFP to contractors. We asked them to indicate the size of the their company, if they were a disadvantaged business, and what their primary line of work is for Sound Transit. We received a little over 50 responses, primarily from large and small or disadvantaged businesses, with a few mid-sized contractors responding as well. The companies were relatively distributed between earth moving companies, trucking, tunnel construction, station construction, and track construction. A large part of the survey involved the contractors filling out an inventory of their fleet s on and off road vehicles. We asked the contractors to do this so we could have an understanding of what contractor s current fleets look like compared to clean diesel standards we re considering. We found that in general, most large firms on road equipment meet clean diesel standards, while small and disadvantaged businesses fleets are less likely to meet the standards. Similarly, large firms are more likely to have plans to replace their equipment with cleaner vehicles in the next few years. Small and disadvantaged businesses are much less likely to have plans to replace their equipment in the near future. We are currently working on validating this data both through additional contractor interviews, and with various groups like the Department of Ecology s Diesel program. 9

10 The other focus of the survey was to understand any other best management practices firms are currently undertaking. We asked several questions regarding companies idling practices, such as what their current standard for idling time is, what idling strategies they use, and what strategies they think are most effective. We found that most contractors reported an typical idling time of 5 minutes. 40% of contractors had a company policy, 35% had no strategy, and 25% used education. Most companies thought that a company policy and education were the most effective strategies. We also asked contractors a few questions on reporting to better understand how time burdensome adding new sustainable construction requirements might be. We found that contractors are currently most likely to collect job site information on make and model, followed up fuel type. We asked contractors how much time it would take the to report equipment inventory information to us, and answers ranged widely, but were generally higher or larger contractors than small or disadvantaged. Most contractors did agree that the most favored method of reporting was to submit an annual inventory sheet. Finally, we asked a few questions on fuel use, and found that about 43% of large contractors, 25% of mid-sized, and 14% of small contractors currently track their fuel 10

11 use. Answers varied widely on how much time it would take to report quarterly fuel use, and about half of the contractors reporting having reliable access to biodiesel. 10

12 As mentioned earlier, the next step we re currently taking with the survey and interview information is sharing our findings with industry experts to validate the findings. In the coming months we ll be further analyzing the findings to make informed recommendations to our construction management staff on potential new clean diesel and BMP requirements. One topic this survey is helping us to understand is the nature and state of our small and disadvantaged businesses. In some cases, our goals surrounding air quality and clean diesel standards are at odds with our agency s goals maintaining diversity in our contractors. Many small and disadvantaged contractors have much older equipment and are less able to replace their equipment as readily. The survey is giving us good information to help us consider options to maintain diversity through a construction air quality program might be, such as informed exemptions. More immediately, we re using some of the results to inform the other sustainable construction project we re working on, which is three pilot projects for Sustainable Practice Plans. I ll talk more about the SPPs now. 11

13 In order to take a step towards incorporating and integrating sustainability into construction projects, we are conducting three pilots with upcoming construction projects. The purpose of the sustainable practice plans, is to implement environmental stewardship, reduce environmental risks and liabilities, and improve environmental performance focusing on the impacts of natural resource use, identifying cost effective solutions, and enhancing public educations and outreach. The three projects we re piloting are the U District Station, the Roosevelt Station, both part of our new light rail service traveling north, and the 4 downtown Bellevue stations, part of East Link, All of these projects are GC/CM, or General Contractor/Construction Manager. This contracting mechanism allows for the flexibility to negotiate these plans as part of the pre-construction conditions. These pilots are really helping us see the effects of implementation of some of these construction BMPs, how that changes costs, and how contractors are burdened in order to fulfill the plans. 12

14 While the east link project is just beginning to work on drafting their sustainable practice plan, the two north link projects are in final drafting stages of theirs. I ve listed above some of the items from their sustainable practice plan. The contractor has identified Sustainable Practice Plan items in categories ranging from materials use, materials sourcing, reduced energy and water use, equipment and emissions, and air quality. What we ve found in working with the contractors on drafting the plan so far, is that a lot of the items are standard practice for many of the large contractors, such as having an idling policy. Additionally, some items are good for us to include in a sustainable practice plan, but are generally in the contractors best interest, such as maximizing construction waste recycling or using LED lights for temporary lighting. The challenge in implementation is how these requirements will affect the large prime contractors ability to identify sub contractors to meet the same requirements. Some items in the initial pilot projects may not be as aggressive as we d like, but we are requiring a lot of reporting. For instance, we won t be requiring Tier 3 and 4 equipment on site, but we will be requiring reporting, so by the end of the project we ll have good data on all equipment used. We re hoping these pilot projects will give us some real on-the-ground data on sustainable construction 13

15 best management practices, so combined with the survey and interview data, we can have better informed recommendations for the future. 13

16 The two projects, the construction air emissions survey and the sustainable practice plan pilots, are truly working congruently and are interconnected. Ultimately, the trajectory of this work will be for the survey information to inform future sustainable practice plans. We ll use the information gathered from the SPP pilots to supplement our survey findings, to help build our understanding of the state of our contractors. Finally, we hope to use all of this information to work towards new construction specifications so that these concepts become common practice for construction at Sound Transit. 14

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