By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The transit agency Metro says its light rail line to South St. Louis county could be more than $100 million over budget.
At Metro's board meeting Friday, agency President Larry Salci said the project's final cost could top out at $676 million. It's estimate up to now was $550 million.
Salci blamed the Cross County Collaborative for the overruns. That was a group of four design firms hired to oversee construction of the line.
"It's like a tsunami," Salci said Friday. "The earthquake occurred in January of 2002. They said the design was complete. The impacts of that not being the case are the waves that continue to hit this agency, and some haven't hit the shoreline yet, on the damages that were done."
Metro fired and sued the group last year. But Collaborative spokesman Mary Schanuel says Salci is just trying to pin blame elsewhere: "Obviously Mr. Salci has a major budget problem. And we can only speculate on why he's blaming that on the cross county collaborative.
The eight mile line is still scheduled to open in the fall of next year. The eight-mile line will stretch from Forest Park to Shrewsbury, in South St. Louis County.