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City gets rolling on MacIver extension |
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Wednesday, 17 October 2007 |
By Mike Gervais
Register Staff 10-16-2007
A new road is coming to town.
The MacIver Street Construction Project got under way this week, and, by the end of the year, motorists will have a new road to ride connecting Main Street to Spruce Street.
The first phase of the street improvement/extension project is expected to last until about mid-November, when the city will pick up the second phase, bringing the project to completion.
“The first phase of the project will extend the street pavement, a water line, a sewer line and a drainage line to Spruce Street,” said Public Works Director Dave Grah.
That is the extension end of the project. The second phase will include improvements to the curbs, gutters and sidewalks and will begin in late November.
The project to extend MacIver Street, Grah said, has been in the citybooks for about five years.
“This is a way to improve circulation, another way out for people using MacIver Street,” Grah said.
“But there have been funding delays” and other problems that have prevented the project from getting under way.
Also, the city had to contend with getting land for the road to be built on. The last few months has been dedicated to working out an easement agreement with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that would allow for the road connecting Main and Spruce streets. That 60-foot easement is now ready and so is Sierra Nevada Construction, who won the bid for the street extension project.
“We are still hammering out the cost” for the easement, Grah said, noting that it is estimated to cost about $5,000. The LADWP gave the city permission in July to begin work on the parcel anyway.
Sierra Nevada Construction won the MacIver Street project bid and will be paid $524,007 for the first part of the first phase of the work.
“The funding situation is a little complicated,” and the city will be utilizing several different sources for funding the project, Grah said.
Grah will be utilizing the same funding source from the Home Street Improvement project, which was mainly funded by a Regional Transportation Im-provement grant.
In addition to that money, the Public Works Department has obtained Community Develop-ment Block Grant funds, a Transportation Enhancement grant, money from the city’s water and sewer fund as well as approximately $99,000 that Congressman Buck McKeon obtained for the project.
The project has ben split into two phases, Grah said, because there has been a delay in obtaining the $430,000 from the state Caltrans Transportation Enhance-ment Act. That money, when it is released to the city, will pay for phase two of the project.
“Unless the costs are really out of line, we should be in good shape,” Grah said of the second phase of the project.
Each funding source is dedicated to a specific purpose on the project.
For example, the city water and sewer funds, which are designated to be used only for city water and sewer systems, will be utilized to provide the necessary water and sewer systems on approximately 550 feet of new street that will extend MacIver Street to Spruce Street.
The Transportation Enhance-ment funds will be used to rehabilitate the pavement on the existing street, as well as provide materials for the new pavement.
The Regional Transportation Improvement funding, Grah said, will “be a bulk” of the monies for the project, and is designated to go towards the construction costs of the project.
The money from the CDBG, as well as the $99,000 from McKeon, will be used for the engineering plans and other costs that will be incurred during the planning and construction phases.
The total cost of the project is estimated at about $1.1 million.
“This week a minimum of vegetation will be cleared for the construction of the street extension and the new roadbed will be graded,” Grah said.
That grading should be completed by the middle of this week, when crews will begin work on underground sewer and drainage pipes in the area.
Once that has been completed, sewer and drainage work will begin on the existing street.
Because most of the first phase of the project consists of work on the street extension area, minimal traffic impacts are expected.
For more information on this project, call the Bishop Public Works Department at (760) 873-8458.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 December 2007 )
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