/ Modified may 13, 2012 9:47 a.m.

Streetcar Project On Time, On Budget So Far

First 5 weeks of 68-week project to lay rails downtown, near UA

The Tucson Modern Streetcar project is on time and on budget so far, as motorists driving downtown and near the University of Arizona may have noticed.

Most of the road closures drivers see are related to construction of the rails in the street along the 5-mile streetcar route, says Carlos de Leon, transit services manager for the Regional Transportation Authority.

"All our major components are either in production or construction," de Leon says. "That includes things like our vehicle, which is about ready to enter production, our maintenance facility which has started construction and what most people are observing which was the rail construction.”

The RTA and the city of Tucson are co-managing the streetcar project, which has been under construction for about five weeks.

"Our construction projects affect our local community and we want to make that as painless as possible so we tried to do it as quickly as possible and keep our contractor on schedule,” de Leon says.

The contract for rail construction is 475 days, or 68 weeks, he says. The $193 million dollar project is paid for with local funds from the Regional Transportation Authority’s half-cent sales tax, plus funding from the federal government.

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