Metro to buid the 4 light transit rail (LTR) lines in Houston entered into contract in 2009 with Houston Rapid Transit (HRT), Joint Venture Team lead by Parsons based in Washington, DC with office in Houston.
The other companies part of HRT are Granite Construction, Kiewit and Stacey and Witbeck, Inc., General Engineering Contractors. Granite Construction is the lead player in the construction side.
The Four (4) lines to be built or intended to be built in 2009 was the East End Corridor, Southeast Corridor, North Corridor and the Galleria Line. Currently the East, Southeast and North lines are under construction.
HRT is to hire local contractors which includes DBE firms - Disadvantage Business Enterprise - Minority, Woman Owned - Disabled.
METRO has a good affirmative action group that called firms in the design phase to makes sure that non-DBE firms were using DBE firms as specified by federal law/contract. For the construction phase - enforcement of using DBE firms and using local firms is being done sparsely.
The HRT Joint Venture Team is is bring in construction laborers, surveyors, flagmen, inspectors and other staff from out of State -.
It is a same that over $120 million being spent by METRO in Houston, Texas - with Federal dollars comming in that local businesses in Houston and the surrounding counties of Harris County are barely hanging on struggling to make payroll while METRO let's HRT screw the DBE firms out of working normal and using non-DBE firms for additional support in this economy.
Parsons, Granite, Kiewit and Stacey should appreciate have a project of this magnitude in this economy - but they should also take extraordinary steps to be extra generous to the locals who paid that tax base that generated to give their employees their pay checks.
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