Good News, Another Cone Zone

The bid opening for Highway 16 took place last Wednesday, which in itself is good news. The Environmental Assessment (EA), required on all road projects using federal funds, took about 12 months longer than anticipated to arrive at the ìFinding of No Significant Impactî, or FONSI in government speak ñ pronounced just like the character on ìHappy Daysî for those of you willing to date yourself. So now a year behind the anticipated start date we have a contractor.

My grumbling aside about the time and money spent on the Environmental Assessment to add a couple of lanes to an existing road and build two bridges, one over the creek and one over the interstate, like maybe we would use a ferry for the creek and install stoplights on I-25. Anyway, the timing delay did work to our advantage. The recent completion of Cosmix through Colorado Springs idled a lot of big yellow equipment and the crews associated with it. One of the partners on Cosmix was the successful bidder at 22.58 million. 6.42 million less than the design engineers and budget folks had anticipated.

This contract is for phase one which starts at the interstate, builds two bridges as well as an additional two lanes on Highway 16 east to Highway 85 and deconstructs (another government term) the empty buildings obtained by the Colorado Department of Transportation on the north side of Highway 16.

Phase two is expected to be significantly less expensive and it had been anticipated we would have the funding for phase two before phase one was completed. In reality, Phase two is 2 additional lanes to a short stretch of Highway 85 and an interchange with only one bridge since we currently have one in place over the railroad tracks and Highway 85. With the 6.42 million available in 2008 and the ìanticipatedî transportation funds available for 2009, we have a fairly high degree of confidence it will look like one construction project and given the contractor met the advertised schedule on Cosmix, maybe even a fairly high level of confidence that construction will be completed 18 months after the big yellow equipment shows up.

There are still contracts to be reviewed and signed as well as bonds to be posted, so donít look for the cones to go up in the next few weeks. But I am anxiously awaiting an invitation to the ground breaking ceremony - before I start using an alternate route to the office.

CONTACT THE WRITER • HISEY4CD4@MSN.COM

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