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Gridlock City?
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Regional
leaders seek ways to “fast-track” Highway 40 reconstruction.
By William Poe
You may have seen the new blue and white “Show Me Progress” signs
bordering state highway construction projects in Missouri. Well,
regional boosters are suggesting a slight change to the signs to
mark the coming reconstruction of Interstate 64 (U.S. Highway 40)
in St. Louis: “Show Me Progress Really Fast!”
Civic and business leaders fear that the planned seven- to 10-year
reconstruction of I-64 between Tower Grove Avenue in St. Louis and
Spoede Road in Frontenac will mean commuter and commercial traffic
“gridlock.” And they are considering asking Missouri lawmakers to
approve legislation that backers say could cut in half the time
required to rebuild the highway and its interchanges.
“Highway 40 is kind of Main Street St. Louis and a logjam on that
road for 10 years would be unacceptable,” says Scott Schnuck, president
and chief operating officer of Schnucks Markets.
“St. Louis simply cannot tolerate 10 years of massive disruption,”
echoes W. Randolph Adams, the retired vice chairman of Firstar Bank–St.
Louis and chairman of the RCGA’s surface transportation committee.
Planners think they have a proven method for shortening the timeline
for the massive construction project without incurring additional
costs. The process is called “design-build.”
“If implemented on the I-64 project, design-build could help speed
up the project significantly, possibly cutting the 10-year construction
estimate in half,” Schnuck says.
In fact, design-build is doing just that in Salt Lake City, Utah
where Interstate 15, the primary north-south traffic corridor, is
being reconstructed in a similar fashion to that planned for Highway
40 here. The original 10-year project timeline in Salt Lake City
is being slashed to five years, and the highway is to be completed
just in time for that area to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, which
was the impetus for design-build there, Adams says.
St. Louis regional officials have taken to referring to the I-64
reconstruction project as the “Really Big One.” And for good reason,
too. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) is three
years away from beginning the largest highway reconstruction project
the St. Louis area has ever seen. The planned $300 to $500 million
upgrading and realignment of Highway 40 is expected to take seven
to 10 years. Every bridge and interchange (including that with I-170)
along 12 miles of roadway will be replaced, and the entire roadbed
will be reconfigured and rebuilt.
Last fall, a dozen area leaders from MoDOT; the design, engineering
and construction industry; and the RCGA visited, Salt Lake City
to study its design-build project already underway. “They had 500
to 600 engineers in Utah at one time. It was like organizing the
Normandy invasion, and I think everyone was uniformly impressed,”
Adams says.
Design-build is common practice in commercial construction in the
private sector. Design-build practices dictate that teams representing
designers, engineers and contractors work together to design, set
specifications, manage construction and build. The process varies
from the public sector’s design-bid-build paradigm whereby contractors
submit bids to execute plans designed by others. Governments are
generally required to accept the lowest and best bidder according
to rigorous and sometimes cumbersome procurement rules, regulations
and laws.
In Missouri, Adams says MoDOT typically designs a highway or bridge
“to the last square inch,” asks contractors to submit bids and “then
by law must take the low bidder.” The problem, Adams says, is that
the process is lengthy and often results in expensive and time-consuming
construction change orders made necessary when contractors find
they cannot build something the way it was designed.
Adams explains the design-build process the St. Louis delegation
witnessed in Salt Lake City:
For the I-15 reconstruction in Salt Lake City, the Utah Department
of Transportation undertook initial design work before asking for
bids from joint venture organizations comprised of design engineers,
contractors and others. It was understood that these teams would
work together to complete the design and execute the construction,
sometimes building one road section while finalizing design on other
sections. The state required each team to comply with threshold
performance criteria stipulating road grade and traffic management
factors such as vehicle flow capacity, minimum entrance and exit
speeds, and much more.
In Utah, three teams submitted bids on the approximate $1.59 billion
project. Utah ultimately accepted a bid from one bid team while
granting $1 million to each losing team as compensation for use
of some of their design and construction ideas. Only about $3 million
separated the high from the low bidder.
“Utah thinks they saved a lot of money especially in the time value
of money, but they also think they saved money in creative solutions,”
Adams says.
In Missouri, legislation would be required, not only to enable the
design-build process, but also to allow a “quick-take” eminent domain
provision to accelerate the time required to acquire needed property
and compensate landowners. “You can’t have fast-track construction
without access to property,” Adams says.
MoDOT officials have said they intend to make the best use of property
already owned by the state and limit the need for taking additional
land along the current I-64 right of way.
The RCGA is talking to a number of groups around the state to get
their agreement and would work with legislators and the executive
branch to see if we can get it done.
State Highway and Transportation Commission Chairman S. Lee Kling
of St. Louis says the commission, which governs MoDOT, “has said
it would like to support” design-build and looks at I-64 as a test
of the concept.
“Design-build is something we want to promote to see if it really
speeds up the process and saves money,” Kling says.
Les Sterman, executive director of the East-West Gateway Coordinating
Council, which is the highway transportation planning body for the
region, says the council “is generally supportive of design build
as long as we don’t compromise doing it right by doing it fast.
Obviously the Highway 40 project is a difficult one with difficult
design issues, and it remains to be seen if this is a candidate
for design build. People are frustrated by how long it takes to
complete some of these projects.”
The state’s current project timeline calls for actual Highway 40
construction to begin in 2003 and to be completed in 2010.
William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St. Louis
advertising and marketing communications firm. |
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