CDOT Main Street Project: On-Off-On-Off-On

Brian Long and Terry Woodward of CDOT

Brian Long, CDOT Resident Engineer, discussed the latest plan to move forward with the Main Street Renovation Project during a September 6^th meeting with local officials.  Despite the fact that the low bidder on the $10 M project was at $12.3M, the proposal now is to try to have the project approved at that price by CDOT officials.  That was one of the two options he laid out earlier this summer when the four bids were opened, all above the base projection.  “I think they may try to find the extra funding to let the project move forward,” he explained.  Long stated that the other three bids were in the range of $13.8 M and those three were all within a $150,000 window of each other.

Long said American Civil Contracting out of Denver had the low bid and if it is accepted, as he feels it will be, the project would begin in March of 2017 and should be completed by August or September in 2018. “This way, there will be time to review the project with the contractor as well as the city and the local business which will be impacted by the project,” he stated.  Long felt secure that the low bid will be accepted by the Transportation Division of CDOT rather than another bid delay with no guarantee that the estimate will alter from the construction companies.  “There is a very slight chance they’ll say no, but we’re proceeding on the awarding of the project,” he told the gathering.

Long said even if the project could begin by this October, the amount of work done would be limited to moving the lights from the median to the sidewalks. “It’s not worth the trouble to mobilize a crew to do just that part of the project,” he said.  This way, with a start in spring, the crew will be able to work through the summer, into fall, and depending on weather conditions, into the early part of winter, halving the project into two segments instead of three separate intervals between the Lamar Canal and the college.  “We’re estimating 450 working days in all for its completion.  The project is for highway improvement and safety.  Basically 287 will be all concrete and that’s a portion of what the project will accomplish,” he stated.  City Administrator, John Sutherland, said CDOT grant funding to the city will be used for a beautification project through the downtown area and would take place once the highway project was completed.

Long anticipated longer lines at the streetlights. “Because we’re closing down traffic on the west side, and then the eastern side off Main Street, lines at the lights will be longer and the public has to be ready to accept that,” he stated.  He said one problem area will be the railroad crossing between Hickory and Beech Streets.  “We’ll have traffic that’s head to head at the lights, but the semis will have to cross over at the train tracks and they’ll need to have room to make that adjustment from one side to another along with other vehicles.”  He added that because of insurance regulations, semis need to stay on a designated highway to ensure coverage.  “We just found out that if they take the Maple Street and Second Streets as a detour, they won’t have insurance coverage, so we may have to do something about a future designation,” he said.

By Russ Baldwin