A rail overpass vital to completion of the East End light rail line that has divided neighbors and eroded public confidence will be delayed another four months, Metro officials confirmed Monday.

"It has been the project from hell from the beginning," Metropolitan Transit Authority board member Cindy Siegel said. "It needs to get done."

The ongoing construction will pose a hardship for Harrisburg-area residents and businesses.

Beyond those effects, Metro officials worry about the continued impacts of major projects encountering obstacles that prompt apologies from the transit agency."I am tired of this agency being beat up for not doing what we say we will do," board member Diann Lewter said.

The overpass was expected to open to traffic in mid-May, but the revised schedule approved Monday moves back completion by four months, to Sept. 12.

This means Metro and others responsible for completing the Green Line will need to hustle to have trains ferrying passengers on its last mile, east of the overpass, by Super Bowl Sunday.

In the interim, Metro and its contractor, McCarthy Building Companies, have agreed to reopen by June 12 the traffic lanes not using the bridge, re-establishing some vehicle traffic in the area. The construction effects have infuriated business owners along Harrisburg.

"I am tired of the same old thing again and again," said Carlos Garcia, who along with other property and business owners has shown up frequently at Metro meetings to raise their concerns. "I want to leave my neighborhood now."

Garcia twice moved his car dealership to get away from Metro's light rail construction, only to have it continue to act as a drag on his business, he said, because of the loss of traffic along Harrisburg.

Over 100 days of delay

Metro board members conceded the project has been a nightmare and its toll on the area has been significant.

"It is a high-profile project and I don't think we've managed it well," Lewter said.

The remedy, board chairman Gilbert Garcia said, is to admit mistakes but focus efforts on finishing the overpass and extending the rail line.

"When it is done and done right and looks right, people will feel much better," Garcia said.

Garcia and others made similar statements when McCarthy broke ground last May on the overpass, under an aggressive schedule to have it open in about a year.

If the company had the bridge ready to open before May 12, it stood to receive up to $600,000 in incentives. Delays blamed on the company would have led to financial penalties, but only after June 12.

Since then, 123 days of delay have been recorded as related to circumstances outside McCarthy's control, such as abandoned utility lines that hadn't been moved and the discovery of underground fuel-storage tanks. The company, citing the delays, scaled back its crews, though in November officials said it could catch up by adding crews.

Board members said they remained skeptical all of the delays were Metro's fault or unavoidable.

"I was going out there almost every day," Metro board member Jim Robinson said. "I do think there were many days the contractor would and should be working."

The revised schedule - which included negotiations with McCarthy and Metro bringing on a construction consultant to manage the project - now offers the contractor up to $450,000 for finishing before Sept. 12. McCarthy also is receiving $150,000 to accelerate construction of the at-grade lanes of the overpass so traffic can flow again.

'Quite a bit of money'

Settling the McCarthy schedule isn't the final step, however, in completing the crossing. To appease residents, who were divided on accepting Metro's plans for an overpass or fighting more vigorously and delaying the project further, vehicular traffic will move along the overpass while other vehicles cross the freight railroad tracks at grade. Completing the project requires coordinating with Union Pacific Railroad on the new crossing and installing electrical lines.

The project remains on budget at $30.7 million. Metro included an unusually high contingency because of previous industrial uses along Harrisburg.

"Thirty million dollars is quite a bit of money for a bridge, this kind of bridge," Metro board member Lisa Castaneda said. "We have paid a lot of money and I think it is extremely important to get this done."

The setback is the latest in what has been a painful expansion of rail on Houston's east side. Construction affected thousands of residents as it languished along Harrisburg, while Metro struggled to regain neighborhood credibility after a calamitous attempt to build an underpass.

That miscue, coupled with numerous delays in acquiring trains and lackluster ridership shortly after the lines opened in May, has officials focused on avoiding such problems in upcoming projects.

Lewter identified efforts to build a transit center for a dedicated bus lane project along Post Oak as an example. Though a management district, rather than Metro, is leading the bus lane project, Lewter said Metro must be involved and set realistic schedules.

"I don't want to be here all over again," she said.