The California Transportation Commission has awarded $7.2 million to the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) for a construction project that will allow OCTA and Metrolink to construct a catchment wall at Mariposa Point in San Clemente, Calif., as well as other mitigation to protect the track from soil and debris from a privately owned slope that slid into the rail right of way in late January.
The $7.2 million is in addition to a $2 million previous award from the state of California for cleanup and pre-construction activities at the site. That money was made available when Caltrans declared an official emergency.
On Feb. 16, Metrolink signed a design-build contract with Condon-Johnson & Associates, a construction firm that has worked with OCTA on previous emergency rail protection efforts in San Clemente, for the project.
As details of the construction project contract are finalized, OCTA, Metrolink and the LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency, which operates the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner service through the area, will work on a timeline for safely resuming limited passenger rail service as soon as possible. The timeline has not been determined at this point.
The OCTA and Metrolink project team, which has been working to replace the plastic tarps on the site to protect the slope as much as possible from further saturation, will continue to inspect the slope and monitor for any additional slope movement. More rain is expected in the area during the coming week.
Metrolink continues to work toward awarding a contract to build a barrier wall at the site. As part of that planning, the project team hopes to safely resume limited passenger rail service as soon as possible. That timeline has not yet been determined.
