Yesterday the California High Speed Rail Authority announced it had selected the bid from Tutor Perini-Zachry-Parsons for the Central Valley section of the construction project. Their bid was the lowest of the five, coming in at $985 million. It also received the lowest technical ranking.

The initial estimate from the Authority for the project cost was $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion. Three of the five bids did indeed fall into that range. A $985 million bid would be a big savings – assuming the cost estimate wasn’t low-balled in order to win the bid with the intent to make it up on the back end with change orders and cost overruns.

For some background on the bid groups, see this CAHSR blog post from last year. As to the bids themselves, based on the “Apparent Best Value Ranking” document, here’s how they stacked up:

Tutor Perini-Zachry-Parsons

Price: $985 million

Price score (70 points possible): 70

Technical score (30 points possible): 20.55

Total score (100 points possible): 90.55

Dragados-Samsung-Pulice

Price: $1.085 billion

Price score: 63.55

Technical score: 26.13

Total score: 89.68

California Backbone Builders (Ferrovial and Acciona)

Price: $1.365 billion

Price score: 50.49

Technical score: 27.71

Total score: 78.20

California High Speed Rail Partners (Fluor, Skanska, PCL)

Price: $1.263 billion

Price score: 54.59

Technical score: 27.71

Total score: 78.20

California High Speed Rail Ventures (Kiewit, Granite, Comsa)

Price: $1.537 billion

Price score: 44.87

Technical score: 21.41

Total score: 66.27

The Authority did not release any details of the bids, so it’s not clear what drove the technical scores. It was notable to me that the Dragados-Samsung-Pulice group bid was very close to Tutor Perini-Zachry-Parsons in price, but apparently significantly superior in technical aspects. Still, the overall process gave cost over twice as much weight as technical score, so the $985 million bid won out.

It’s way too soon to determine just what this all means for California high speed rail, aside from the fact that the cost of this segment might be lower than expected. How did the winning bidders get their cost estimate down below $1 billion? What are the key points of difference between theirs and the other four bids? Why did it receive the lowest technical score, and is that going to cause problems during construction?

I don’t mean to sound skeptical since the low bid is good news from a cost perspective. I wish we knew more details about the technical aspects of the bids, but I also have confidence that the project will be built in a good way that lays the spine for this crucial project in the coming years.