The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) on June 24 approved a request for qualifications (RFQ) for the $2.4 billion Merced-to-Madera (M2M) civil works contract. The move officially expands construction beyond the project’s original 119-mile Central Valley footprint, pushing the total project area under active design and construction to 171 miles from Merced to Bakersfield.
The procurement follows a collaborative design-build process, which allows the authority and competing teams to work together during project development to refine the design, reduce risk and improve cost and schedule certainty before selecting a final contractor. The Authority says it is using a “collaborative design-build” approach to avoid schedule delays and budget overruns that have previously plagued the project.
With this method, pre-selected contractor teams will sign a Pre-Proposal Collaboration Agreement (PPCA) to work together on plans before a final price is set.
“This agreement will govern their work during the proposal and design-development period, which will culminate with the presentation of a firm fixed price proposal for the completion of both design and construction,” explains spokeswoman Daniela Contreras. “The selected team of contractors will ultimately serve as the designer of record.”
CHSRA previously awarded a $41 million design services contract for the project to Stantec, which advanced the initial design to approximately 30 percent. This work will serve as a reference design for M2M procurement, adds Contreras.
The next heavy civil package for the 30.3-mile M2M contract will focus on grading, drainage, retaining walls, animal crossings, irrigation structures, utility relocations and quality management, as well as major road crossings to remove existing vehicle and load crossings. The authority says the segment will not include any tunnels and will use both elevated and at-grade structures.
Historically, one of the biggest challenges of the railway project has been the acquisition of rights of way. In the first segments, construction contracts were awarded before the state fully owned the plots of land, leading to delays by contractors. To mitigate this risk in the Merced-to-Madera Extension, CHSRA says it is actively moving forward with ROW acquisition.
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“We anticipate securing approximately 70 percent of the required right-of-way by the end of 2027, which aligns with the level of design completion required to begin construction,” says Contreras.
In addition, the contract framework is expected to enforce strict geographic checkpoints to halt construction until the land is secured. “The main areas of the scope of work will be staged with multiple Notices of Process,” says Contreras.
Statements of qualifications are due in November 2026, and the authority says it hopes to select two major joint venture procurement teams by December 2026. The formal pre-proposal period and collaboration are designed to last from January 2027 to October 2027, culminating in an award proposal in November 2027. A major field mobilization is scheduled from 2020 to 2030.
At the same time this contract is underway, the Board also advanced its application for a Cal CLEAN partnership agreement. This separate public-private partnership (P3) RFQ seeks a private developer to design an independent, “behind-the-meter” trackside clean energy utility. The plan includes a 552-acre solar infrastructure network combined with 62 megawatt-hours of battery storage to insulate trains from commercial grid outages and reduce long-term electricity.
As for the timetable for clean energy to be in place, the Authority says it is too early to “determine the specific configuration of how route-adjacent solar generation and battery storage would interact with rail line traction power substations.” Contreras says that these elements are still under evaluation and no final decisions have been made.
Like much of the rail infrastructure work, construction of the clean energy portion will be done in phases. Similar to the recently executed co-development agreement with Momentum Alliance Partners, a global consortium evaluating broader expansion and private investment opportunities, the Cal CLEAN partnership would begin with a pre-development and evaluation phase, Contreras says.
“During this phase, the selected partner would analyze options, refine the scope and return recommendations to the Authority and the Board of Directors for consideration. Final decisions, including whether the private partner would build the storage asset, would be made following this evaluation.”
The project represents the next phase of the extension of California’s high-speed rail system north through the Central Valley, building on a system-wide foundation where 80 miles of track and 61 major structures have already been completed, and track installation is scheduled to begin later this year.
