Organized Labor

By Paul Burton
Contributing Writer

Construction of a new Presidio Parkway began last month. The new seismically safe roadway will replace Doyle Drive – the portion of Highway 101 located within the Presidio that winds 1.5 miles along the northern edge of San Francisco and connects the city’s peninsula to the Golden Gate Bridge and the North Bay.

According the Presidio Parkway project website, “Doyle Drive is structurally and seismically vulnerable and must be replaced. The roadway is facing the same problem that threatens other crucial components of the nation’s infrastructure – the ravages of time and continual use. Originally built in 1936, Doyle Drive has reached the end of its useful life. The new Presidio Parkway replacement is based on a world-class design that will improve the seismic, structural and traffic safety of the roadway. It also will be far more sensitive to community needs and to the national park setting, reducing impacts on biological, cultural, historical and natural resources and on the surrounding neighborhoods.”

The new design also includes new direct access to the Presidio and enhanced views, a more centralized location for transit connections, enhanced pedestrian connections within the Presidio to the nearby parks and reduced light and noise intrusion at Crissy Field.

 According to the project developers, “the Presidio Parkway is being constructed using eight separate and phased contracts as part of a strategy to both speed construction and provide more contracting and subcontracting opportunities to small and disadvantaged businesses. The first major construction contract in the amount of $48.4 million was awarded to contractor C.C. Myers in November 2009 and work under this contract is in the southwest section of the corridor.”

On a recent visit to the site, a crew of operating engineers with C.C. Myers were busy grading the area just below the west end of Doyle Drive while a crew of iron workers from Harris Salinas rebar were tying rebar columns that will support parts of the elevated roadway. Both are union contractors. Myers is well-known for the quality of work their crews did for the Bay Bridge temporary bypass.

At another job site along Mason Street at the edge of Crissy Field, crews from Ghilotti Brothers, Inc. (GBI), of Marin were repaving portions of the street after utility lines were relocated there. Ghilotti Brothers was also the contractor for the two new parking lots at the City College of San Francisco’s new facility at its Ocean Avenue campus. GBI became a union signatory in 1954. It employs members of the Northern California District Council of Laborers, Operating Engineers Local No. 3, District Council of Plasterers and Cement Masons of Northern California, Teamsters’ Northern California Committee, and Northern California Carpenters’ Regional Council. According to the company’s mission statement, “These affiliations are important and are vital to our company’s well-being and success. Working with the unions provides good working relationships for our employees and guarantees them a competitive salary in today’s market and provides the union member with the opportunity for a comprehensive health and welfare benefits package.”

Contractors Rosendin Electric, Bass Electric and St. Francis Electric were involved with relocating utilities from Doyle Drive. All are union contractors; St. Francis is a signatory to master agreements with the International Brother of Electrical Workers, Operating Engineers, Laborers and Machinists unions. Other contractors on different sections of the project include Bay Cities Paving and Malcolm Drilling. Members of Operating Engineers Local 3 from Malcolm Drilling recently conducted soil testing at the eastern end of the project where another section of elevated roadway will replace the existing one.

About 13,000 jobs will be created during the project, which is scheduled for completion by 2014.

Funding sources for the Doyle Drive replacement include $173 million from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, $420 million from the state, $80 million from bridge tolls, $80 million from North Bay transportation agencies, $102 million in federal funds already committed to the project, and the $100 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The ARRA funding was announced in February 2009 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“With California receiving a nearly $2.6 billion share of highway funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we have another significant opportunity to move the new Presidio Parkway closer to becoming a reality,” Speaker Pelosi said at the time. “Together, we will build not only a new bridge, but a new opportunity for job creation and economic recovery here in San Francisco.”

“The Doyle Drive Replacement project has been a vision for more than 15 years, and because of the strong regional commitment to partner and prioritize this critical infrastructure project, it is now a reality,” said Mayor Newsom. “This project is shovel ready and a signature example of how the federal stimulus can close the funding gap, stimulate the economy, improve transportation, and create jobs in San Francisco.”

Regional governments and agencies worked together to fill the funding gap in the reconstruction project. Pelosi promised that a $100 million infusion from the federal stimulus package would finally close the gap for rebuilding Doyle Drive.

Last year, Supervisor Ross Mirakarimi called on Caltrans to make a commitment to hiring local men and women to rebuild Doyle Drive through the CityBuild program. CityBuild is a pre-apprenticeship program supported by the Building Trades council and Northern California Regional Council of Carpenters to recruit, train and place construction workers and link them with employers and contractors working in San Francisco’s construction industry. But because the Doyle Drive project is partially funded by the federal government, it isn’t subject to the City’s local hiring rules.

The SF Board of Supervisors passed Mirkarimi’s resolution calling on Caltans and its contractors to work with the City’s workforce development programs and hire local construction workers.

The project recently made news when a rare native California plant, a Franciscan manzanita, that was thought to be extinct in the area was found directly in the path of the project. Caltrans, contractors, the Presidio Trust, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, California Department of Fish and Game, scientists, and environmental groups worked together to relocate the plant with a root ball mass weighing approximately 25,000 pounds to an undisclosed area in the Presidio.

For more information, go to: www.presidioparkway.org.