Road work ahead — and lots of it
Posted on April 5th, 2007 – 6:10 AMBy Roadguy
Roadguy still has road construction on the brain, and he’s not the only one. For one thing, MnDOT unveiled its big list of summer highway projects today, and Minnesotans who have plans to drive anywhere between now and November can peruse the maps with trepidation — just how long is it going to take to get to Aunt Marilyn’s Fourth of July shindig THIS year?
Simply stewing about the Orange Barrels of Doom won’t do, of course — such matters must be discussed. Alert reader Andy, for one, e-mailed Roadguy yesterday:
Topic suggestion: The MnDOT plan to completely close Hwy. 36 in North St. Paul to shorten a project to seven months. I know the Crosstown disaster impacts a lot of people, but this 36 plan will mess up a chunk of the NE metro.
Indeed it will, as this story from Sunday’s Strib indicates. Curiously, an earlier plan for the Crosstown would have shut down sections of Hwy. 62 for extended periods. Check out this excerpt from a 2001 Strib article:
[MnDOT said] the eastbound lanes between Penn and Portland avenues would be closed for one year, eight months. The estimated three- to four-year closure of the westbound lanes is still under study.
Four years? Gee, I wonder why that didn’t fly.
The closing of Hwy. 36 apparently didn’t draw sufficient backlash to produce a change o’ plans, and a letter from Tuesday’s paper suspects money is at the root (click here and scroll down). Could be; if nothing else, Minnesota’s finances definitely aren’t what they were in 2001, when the state mailed out $791 million in rebates.
That’s ancient history, but if you have thoughts about total highway closings, the Hwy. 36 project, or any of the other upcoming road-construction chaos, please share below.
13 Responses to "Road work ahead — and lots of it"
Closing Hwy 36 will be painful, but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. For one, the contractor will effectively have unfettered access to the highway. This will A) improve worker safety, B) greatly reduce traffic control costs (which are a small, but noticeable chunk of any highway project), and C) cut down the length of the project, as the contractor will have the ability to work on the entire road at once without having to work on one side, then shift over to the other side AFTER a traffic shift.
It’s not an option for every road (imagine shutting down 35W during the Crosstown rebuild), but it’s definately something that can be pursued on smaller projects. MnDOT does it outstate with rural reconstruction projects all the time.
Froggie, on the subject of MN 36, do you know the current plans for the section through Stillwater. The most recent documents on the Mn/DOT web site seem to suggest the signals will remain after the new bridge is built- was the project downscaled for cost or because of municipal consent issues? Also, any plans for eliminating the remaining signals between US 61 and I-694?
Municipal consent issues…Oak Park Heights did not like the “buttonhook ramp” design that was proposed. As they already gave municipal consent for the 1995 plan, which consisted of intersection improvements (mainly dual left turn lanes), the signals will remain.
Eliminating the remaining signals between 61 and 694 is a long-range goal, but presently unfunded (as is most everything else around the metro).
I’m glad I don’t live in the NE metro. With 36 shut down and the intense construction on 694/35E interchange you may want to invest in that car audio system and upgrade the seats, because you’ll be there for awhile.
I think everyone that lives east of 35E will be impacted by the hwy 36 shutdown. I commute into and out of NE Mpls daily on 94 (well, most days anyway). I think a lot of commuters from the Stillwater area and western WI will detour south to I-94 and then westbound. Well, I have news for them–you aren’t gonna save any time going that way. 94 westbound usually backs up around White Bear Ave. most mornings. With additional traffic avoiding hwy 36, 94 will likely be bumper-to-bumper back to Woodbury most days. Maybe after Memorial Day, traffic will let up a bit as people start to take their vacations, but still, it’s going to be a looooong spring and summer for us eastern dwellers.
Having said that, I think it’s a great idea to shut down a road completely in order to expedite the construction process and save money. On a smaller scale, last year in Woodbury, Valley Creek Rd. over 494 was completely shut down from April to August to replace the bridge over 494. It was a bit of an inconvenience, but they got ‘er done even sooner than they’d predicted–in 4 months instead of five. Hopefully with good weather, hwy 36 will be rebuilt sooner than they’ve scheduled.
If the savings in time and cost are quantifible against the “costs” of full closure, go ahead. But be warned, if the whole thing is tore up and we get another Wakota bridge style “engineering/contractor issue”, you run the risk of having the project junked in the middle and people left in a lurch. Or in a muddy ditch, which is what could happen if the “low bid” contactor goes bankrupt.
the contractor, PCI, is solid, I’ve got two relatives working there. if there’s an early completion bonus on that job, they’ll get it.
the wakota bridge issue was plainly an architectural goof, the contractor on that one, Lunda, is also solid. I relax crossing the bridges when their trailers are at the side of the road.
Scott,
You are either a contractor yourself or are ignorant of the current state of the government–construction contractor relationship. The typical situation goes something like this. The contractor bids the initial project lower than they can afford. This is done to win the bid. Then during the course of construction, the contractor attempts to increase their income by submitting additional inflated claims to state for the project that they knowingly underbid. A few rounds of back and forth between the government, the contractor, and the lawyers ends in the contractor getting some or most of the amount in their claims (most of the time).
As for the Wakota bridge, you may want to check your facts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakota_Bridge). Within the MN transportation/construction community it is common knowledge that the design firm, HNTB, committed a structural design error. The error was that there was an insufficient amount of steel strains in the concrete box and as a result the concrete boxes cracked. The result of cracks in post-tensioned concrete structures is that steel strand (and thus the bridge) has a shorter amount of safe service life. After the error was determined, then a new set of plans established for the second bridge that had yet to be constructed. Unfortunately Lunda saw this as a great opportunity to stick it to the taxpayers of MN. Thankfully the DOT demonstrated some backbone and Lunda was taken off the project.
Are all highway contractors dishonest and scheming? Of course not, but the above scenario does happen all too frequently.
I see I have a few typoes.
steel strand not steel strain
..plans was established…
Steven:
…plans were established…
If you remember there was another construction disaster a few years ago. At the construction of an interchange of MN 19 and US 169 apperently there weren’t sufficient soil borings taken to determine if the soil could hold addtional fill on top of it. Turnst out it couldn’t. They had to remove the fill, replace the soil, and then put the fill back. The thing wound up a year late and $1 million over budget.
Another time they tried some concrete using recycled components on a highway near Willmar. The stuff cracked almost immediately so they had to tear it all out and put in standard concrete.
You’re right on the first graf, Steven… “change orders” are the profit makers on bid jobs. If ever you wonder why there are large numbers of machines sitting idle on a job, that’s because they’re waiting for some, so another crew can come in and quick make the changes before somebody changes their mind. there is always some stuff that will be needed later in a work cycle that isn’t idling now, waiting for a workman to decamp from one machine and slide into another.
there are also a large number of, uhhh, mess-ups in construction, as well as unanticipated circumstances. these can run the gamut from unstable soil where nobody took corings, to unstable foremen who don’t have their stuff together.
the outfit that blends its recovery from all these magic issues and manages to get something built that will pass inspection and makes the paperwork is the outfit that survives to bid another day.
kinda like remodeling projects….
I’d think it’d be in the contractor’s best interest to come in under budget to begin with. The remainder being nothing but pure profit for them.
