Local agencies warn 20‑month limit may not be enough as wildfire impacts compound across project phases

City and county project managers told the Transportation Commission working group that wildfire impacts compound across project phases, creating situations where standard time extensions may not be sufficient to deliver projects.

Marco Arroyo, senior transportation engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, said delays in early phases push all subsequent milestones out and recommended that the commission consider larger allocation extensions for ATP projects. "I believe so because I ultimately, when whenever we start shifting, schedules, especially in the early phases, like in preconstruction, it pushes the entire schedule out," Arroyo said, adding that "allowing possibly 28 to 32 months of allocation extensions would really support keeping the schedules in line."

Marcelino Asencio of the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering described an active project for which recent bids "have been coming back substantially higher" because of a post‑fire labor and pricing environment. He asked whether his project would qualify for the draft policy's additional time. Staff replied that agencies must document how delays are attributable to the covered fires and that they should follow up with staff for project‑specific review.

Agencies also raised supply‑chain and utility concerns. Louis (Luis) Drow of OCTA warned that long lead times for components such as transformers can impose multi‑year delays: "we've been experiencing it since 2020 ... at minimum, a 2 and a half year delay on getting a transformer." Participants noted that Southern California Edison workload after the fires can slow utility permits and service work, which in turn delays construction schedules.

Multiple agencies asked how the interim policy would treat multi‑phase projects that have had earlier phase extensions. Diane Overland and Marco Arroyo described situations where preconstruction phase extensions consume the time available for later phases, creating a mismatch between expenditure deadlines and construction allocation windows. Several city representatives asked staff to consider resetting timely‑use start dates for later phases when earlier phases are delayed so agencies do not lose the ability to seek subsequent extensions.

Staff response and next steps

Commission staff said the draft policy was intended to be applied to each programmed phase as needed and that agencies could request extensions for multiple phases. Staff also acknowledged the issue of compounding extensions and said they would discuss internally how to preserve agencies' ability to seek additional time for later phases that suffer new or continuing delays. Staff invited agencies with imminent deadlines to supply project examples so the commission can evaluate whether 20 months is an adequate standard or whether program‑specific adjustments (for ATP, for example) are necessary.

Agencies asked for one‑on‑one follow‑up with staff; several confirmed they would provide documentation of SCE impacts, bid increases and material lead times to support requests to expand the draft policy beyond the proposed maximums.