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City predicts Walker Street work will be completed on schedule |
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Saturday, 09 August 2008 |
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By Emily Hone BLACKFOOT — Walker Street has been torn up between Fisher Avenue and York Drive for the past month while the City of Blackfoot Street Department rebuilds the street and installs sidewalks, curb and gutter, but city engineer Ron Harwell said the work should be completed before the end of August.
Harwell said renovation of the street is one of the projects scheduled and budgeted for by the City Council this summer, along with repaving West Pacific Street from Ash to its intersection with West Bridge Street.
He said the Walker Street work got a late start due to the necessity for completing the Pacific Street project as quickly as possible because the West Side Ditch Co.’s lateral runs beneath the pavement.
“We were trying to get Pacific Street done before the start of the irrigation season,” Harwell said, “but we’re on schedule to have Walker Street done by the time school starts.”
He said the work on Pacific Street was done at a cost of $800,000, and the city estimated that the Walker Street project will cost $175,000, but ran into problems with the Little Butte ditch that runs down Fisher in front of the Blackfoot High School. That will raise the cost, plus the price of asphalt went up after the project started, and that will add to the cost.
Harwell said the city removed the asphalt pavement and base from Walker Street to begin rebuilding it, but as grading was being done the operator saw water coming to the top. “He dug down to see where it was coming from and found the irrigation pipe was perforated.”
The city hired Gale Lim Construction to remove the wet soil, replace 80 feet of irrigation pipe and haul in dry soil to replace the soil it removed, Harwell said, but they’re still projecting that the work will be finished by Aug. 26.
He said the street renovation includes removing the asphalt and 10 to 12 inches of road base that will be replaced with 3/4 inch base, geo-grid and geo-fabric and covered with three inches of asphalt surface.
The Blackfoot School District is helping to pay the cost of putting in the sidewalk that will replace the walking path on the north side of Walker, Harwell said. The project also includes raising the grade between Walker Street and Mt. Putnam Drive to make it easier for drivers coming off Putnam, he said.
The first section of Walker that was renovated in fiscal year 2004-2005 with curb, gutter and sidewalks added was paid for with a grant from the Idaho Transportation Department, Harwell said, but the cost of the second section is coming out of city tax dollars.
The current project, along with the Pacific Street, were budgeted for by the City Council as part of the the public works projects to be done this summer, he said.
Harwell said cost of the first phase of Walker Street was much higher because more concrete was involved, there were more utility lines to be dealt with, and because it was a federally funded project, the Davis Bacon Act requires that union wages be paid.
“We don’t have wages involved here because the city employees are already being paid,” he noted.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 August 2008 )
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