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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-08-08 MinutesCity Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 1 of 13 Member Aldermen Mayor Dan Coody Ward 1 Position 1 - Robert Reynolds V10 Ward 2 Position 2— Don Marz CityAttorney Kit Williams � 1 Ward 3 Position 2—Robert Ferrell Ward 4 Position 2 - Lioneld Jordan City Clerk Sondra Smith ARKANSAS City of Fayetteville Arkansas City Council Street Committee Meeting Minutes August 8, 2006 A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council Street Committee was held on August 8, 2006 at 6:00 p.m. in Room 326 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas. MEMBERS PRESENT: Alderman Lioneld Jordan, Chair; Alderman Robert Reynolds; Alderman Don Marr; and Alderman Robert Ferrell Staff Present: Ron Petrie, Tim Conklin, Susan Thomas, Mayor Dan Coolly 1. Chairman Jordan called the meeting to order. 2. Approval of minutes from the July 26, 2006 Street Committee meeting. This item was tabled until the next meeting. 3. Discussion of the Rupple Road Cost Share with Reserve LLC located adjacent to the Mountain Ranch Subdivision and the new Favetteville Owl Creek School. Ron Petrie passed out some information regarding this project. He said he felt it was important that he give some history because of the many revisions that have been made to the project since it was conceived. The Street Committee first saw this item in October 2004. It was then conceived as a minor arterial, a four -lane road with no boulevard. That was a very preliminary look at a cost estimate for both the intersection and Rupple Road. In December 2004 the discussion of a bond issue began. The first portion of this project was taken to the Council on March 15, 2005 as a cost share for the intersection itself. The Council approved the cost share but felt we needed to look at the safety of pedestrians at the intersection. At the next Street Committee meeting a boulevard at the intersection was discussed. Later a boulevard was added to the entire section of Rupple Road. This was the second revision to this cross section. The cross section shown to the Street Committee showed two lanes with a 12 ft. trail on one side and street widths of 24 ft. Subsequently, staff met with the Sidewalks & Trails Committee who 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 2 of 13 recommended eliminating the 12 ft. trail and adding footage to the lanes. The Street Committee approved this change to the cross section. The cross section presented as CTA plans matches what the Street Committee saw and is what all the comparisons made at the last meeting were based upon. This cross section showed back -of -curb to back -of -curb as 24.5 ft. and is the cross section that is shown on the Mountain Ranch plans. Mr. Petrie said it is his opinion that plan was wrong. It was not what he had instructed them to do and not what had been agreed upon. It was also not what was sent to Jorgenson for design of the intersection. The cross section reflected on these plans was the one before the last revision was made, taking from the trail to widen the road. This is where the confusion began. He said when you look at the actual plans (which consume many pages) you will see that the sidewalks don't match the cross section shown on the other material. The plans match what everyone (Jorgenson, Crafton Tull, and Street Committee) agreed to do. What happened was that while all these changes were being made, there was a great deal of correspondence back and forth on which cross section to use. What was agreed upon was a 26 ft. wide street (back of curb -of -curb to back -of -curb). Adding this to the 9 ft. median, there is a five-foot difference. He said that on this project the Street Committee never specifically looked at a cross section and approved it. He said he took their discussions on Rupple Road in general and applied it to these plans. He said there was one bad cross section on this set of plans which was missed by staff review and was missed by Crafton & Tull. Unfortunately, that is similar to what was built. He told the Committee that Mr. Hopper of Crafton & Tull had flown in from Atlanta to address some of the cost issues if the Committee would like to hear from him. Mr. Petrie explained that what the Council approved on the cost share for this project was a maximum number. The City always pays unit prices of what is actually built, up to that maximum number. So, we are paying for what we are getting — whether it is 61 ft. wide of 58 ft. Alderman Jordan said he wanted to bring this back to the Street Committee to establish the facts of what occurred to and to decide what to do next. He said what he is seeing is the road should have been 61 ft. wide but it ended up 56 ft. That is 4 ft. of road (with one ft. in the median) running approximately 1000 ft. He asked what the cost of that would be. Mr. Tom Hopper said he has taken the section that had been built, listing the quantities and materials that it has taken to build that section and established the final "as built" cost of that section. These were presented to staff. He said the final cost was $895,000 with the City's projected share being $304,000, leaving $591,000 to be split between Reserve LLC and the Fayetteville School system. In answer to a question from Alderman Jordan, Mr. Hopper said nothing has been lost. The difference is what the City is paying for versus what was agreed upon as a maximum cost. He said 1000 feet of road with a 4 ft. difference would be 4000 square feet or 400 square yards, and estimating about $20 per square yard it would come to approximately $8,000. In response to a question from Alderman Reynolds, Ron Petrie said a cross section was agreed upon and sent to Jorgenson. They built the intersection based on the plan agreed upon. In the 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 3 of 13 meantime they developed their set of plans. He said he doesn't know how the company's process works so he can't answer what happened to get the wrong cross section to build the street In response to a question from Alderman Reynolds, Mr. Tom Hopper said the cross section that was shown on the plans was what was staked and that cross section was what was built — 24 ft. back -of -curb to back -of -curb. Alderman Reynolds asked Mr. Hopper who staked the street. Tom Hopper said his company staked part of the control and the contractor staked the street from there. He said that Crafton Tull had the standard that showed the 24 ft. back-to-back so he won't pass the blame on to the contractor. In response to a question from Alderman Reynolds, Mr. Petrie said the City inspector who was in charge of inspecting this project was Kenny Hunter. Mr. Petrie said Mr. Hunter had the same set of plans as the contractor so he's not sure how he would have discovered the discrepancy. Alderman Marr, asking for clarification, said he understood we thought we had a 61 ft. road, the plan had a 58 ft. road and we built a 56 ft. road. He asked if this was correct. Ron Petrie agreed to that. Alderman Reynolds asked who was responsible for the fact that no one caught this error until after it was built. Ron Petrie said he feels there is plenty of blame to go around. He wishes we had caught the one cross section on the full set of plans so we wouldn't be having this problem. He said he could talk about the heavy workload in the engineering division and the fact that they have about two hours to go through a full set of plans. He said he wishes they had caught the problem but they didn't. He said that one cross section is the only thing wrong with this set of plans. Alderman Marr asked what the citizen is losing. He said it is obvious they have four feet less driving space, but what does this mean to the practical use of the road? Ron Petrie said if you look only at the asphalt section, comparing the as -constructed as opposed to as -approved, you will see there is three and a half feet of reduced asphalt. A lot of that is based on having a stand-up curb as opposed to a typical two -foot wide curb. Alderman Marr asked what that would mean in terms of safety and other practical differences. Ron Petrie said nothing has changed since the last meeting. What was presented then was what was built. What you lose is the additional width for bike traffic, allowing the bike to ease over so cars could pass. There is no real loss of driving surface. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 4 of 13 Alderman Marr asked if the question is whether to recoup the $8000 that should have gone into building the road and apply it to another project or whether this road should be torn out and rebuilt or something else. Alderman Jordan said first he wanted to establish exactly what happened. He felt the Committee owed that to the public. The next thing he wanted to discuss is the $8000 and what to do about that. Ron Petrie said we didn't spend $8000. He said all that was spent was on what was built. It is not as if we paid anything we shouldn't have. It is a unit price, not a lump sum. There is no money to recoup. Alderman Marr said he thought Alderman Jordan was arguing that if the street had four more feet of asphalt, it would have cost something to do that. That is lost road width. Alderman Jordan said that is right. He also added that the loss is particularly off the bike lane on which children are going to be riding. He said that concerns him. Alderman Ferrell said he would like to know when the four foot difference was determined and by whom. Tom Hopper explained that when they got into a discussion about how the intersection was going to work and widths of the road coming up to the intersection, trying to tie the sections together it came to light that there was something wrong. That was about two or three weeks ago. Alderman Ferrell asked what steps have been taken or are now in place to prevent this from happening again. Ron Petrie said this happens every day on projects, though not on the City's capital improvement projects. He said the City makes construction companies tear things out every day. He said it will continue to happen because these are complex projects with contractors, engineers and many other parties involved and mistakes are going to be made. He said that 95% of the time when a mistake is made, the City tells the contractor to tear it out and do it right. Unfortunately, on this one the school has to open on time. In response to a question from Alderman Ferrell, Ron Petrie said he found out about this situation on the Friday before he left on vacation. He said he told them then to tear it out and do it right. From that point the other parties became concerned about the school opening on time so they brought it to the Street Committee for discussion. In response to a further question from Alderman Ferrell, Mr. Petrie said City capital improvement projects are watched more closely with inspections by staff. He explained that we 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 5 of 13 have four public works inspectors. They inspect water from the county line to the other side of Farmington. They inspect all new sewer in the City, all new streets, and all grading and drainage projects. They spend as much time as they can on the private development projects but in-house projects have first priority. The inspectors are in and out of the private projects very quickly and they have some very specific tests that they take, such as for density on sub grade base asphalt, etc. On capital improvement projects they spend more time working through everything that is going on. They are much more familiar with the plans for those projects. Alderman Ferrell asked Mr. Petrie what he feels is the best thing to do with this situation. Ron Petrie said nothing has really changed since the last Street Committee meeting. The City is getting what we were told we were getting at the last meeting. It was acceptable to everyone at that meeting and he thinks it is at the point where we should accept what is there, make sure we don't pay anything we shouldn't have to pay and move on from there. Mayor Coody asked what size the lanes are as built. Ron Petrie said they are 10 ft. lanes, not including the gutter. Tom Hopper said the question he had asked staff to consider and would now ask the Committee to consider is whether the City got what it paid for. Based on the cost estimate he maintains that we did. He said the street is safe and acceptable and though it may not be exactly the street that was agreed upon (for which he apologized), it is a good and safe street that will function well. In response to a question from Alderman Jordan, Ron Petrie said the remaining section of street that will be built to the south will be 64 ft. wide. Alderman Lucas said she felt the City is in a bind here because school is opening and we need the road. However, she said we did not get what we asked for. She asked what it would have cost the company if they had been required to tear out the street and redo it. Tom Hopper said it would have cost around $80,000 to $100,000. Alderman Lucas said that this will affect the road from now on. It is a narrower road and it is taking width off the bike path. She feels we did not get what we thought we were getting. But she knows we have to get the road open for the school. Alderman Marr said if there is any silver lining in this, it is that one of the components of the City's traffic calming policy is narrower roads to reduce traffic around a school. He said he didn't wish to make light of something that wasn't done correctly, but that is something to keep in mind. Alderman Jordan opened the floor for public discussion. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 6 of 13 Fred Turrentine, Fayetteville Public Schools, reminded the Committee and staff that north of the intersection in front of the Boys & Girls Club and in front of the new fire station there is only two lanes leading to the new road which is four lanes. He perceived a bigger problem north of the road just completed than he does this road. He said that a contract was signed on April 5, 2006 to do this road and in that contract they received a take off for quantities of undercut fill asphalt. In April 2006 the City's cost was $324,000 and the school's cost was $314,000. He did calculations on undercut and fill and those quantities equal 24 ft. back -of -curb to back -of -curb. He understands today that the costs are $304,000 for the City and the cost to the school is $295,000. He said there is a question about what numbers were used to do the take off on quantities. Tom Hopper said Crafton Tull did the number take off for the school, the City and the developer. He said the back -of -curb to back -of -curb dimension that the number was based upon was 24 ft. Fred Turrentine said he feels the school got what it paid for. There being no further comments from the audience, Alderman Jordan brought the discussion back to the Committee. Alderman Lucas asked if there was any liability issue if the City accepts the street as it was built and there is an accident. Alderman Marr said he thinks there are 10 ft. lanes everywhere in the City so the street is built to City standards. The road is certainly less than what we want but it is not less than what we have in other parts of the city. Ron Petrie said the width of the street is not a safety issue with cars. He said if it was a safety issue the staff would never have recommended that it remain as built. Alderman Cook said he has experienced having to tear something out before so he knows Ron does tell people to tear things out when they are wrong. He agrees we are in a separate situation because of the school's need to have the road open. He just wants to be assured that Crafton Tull will do everything they can to make sure that everything matches up with the intersection, etc. Tom Hopper said they will. He said he had agreed that Crafton Tull would pay any additional costs on the south end to make the transition back in to the remainder of the street. Alderman Ferrell said he has a tremendous amount of confidence in Ron and he is willing to accept what he says as far as what we need to do next. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 7 of 13 Alderman Reynolds agreed that Ron does a great job. He said he will support his opinion on this. Alderman Jordan said it is not an issue of money for him. He feels the bottom line is accountability. His concern is that the City did not get what was agreed upon. He said he feels that the Council has to be accountable to the people they represent. He knows we are under the gun with the school opening but if the school wasn't involved, the City would make the contractor tear the road out and make it right. He said he cannot support leaving it as it is. He recommends that the City work with Crafton Tull and when school is out next year, they go in and redo the job to 61 ft. Tom Hopper said he is not saying they are not willing to do that, but it is not a matter of just widening the street. There are storm drain issues, box culverts, etc. Alderman Jordan asked Mr. Hopper how we could make it right. Tom Hopper said he feels like the City is getting their money's worth for what they paid for. But if the Committee feels as if there needs to be some expense put on Crafton Tull to leave the street as it is, then he'll have to take the licks. But he doesn't feel like it is in anyone's best interest to tear the street out and widen it. Alderman Jordan said he doesn't think so either but we keep coming back to the $8,000. He knows we haven't spent that money but we would have spent it and he thinks there needs to be some sort of restitution. Tom Hopper said the point he is making is if it's $20,000 or $40,000 that will make the Committee feel that they are taking care of the citizens, that is in everyone's best interest rather than going back out there and tearing the road out. Alderman Jordan said he wasn't talking about $20,000 or $40,000. He is only talking about what he thinks would be fair. Tom Hopper said he just knows that before that street can be used, there needs to be an asphalt surface put down to make it safe. He said it is in everybody's best interest for Crafton Tull to just be penalized by some monetary amount and then get on with getting the project finished. Alderman Jordan said he would make an amendment to his motion that Crafton Tull be penalized $8000 on the project. Mayor Coody suggested that the Committee consider and discuss Mr. Hopper's offer of $20,000 to $40,000 also. Alderman Jordan asked for input from Committee members. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 8 of 13 Alderman Reynolds said he doesn't want any more than he feels the City has coming. Alderman Marr said he doesn't think it is in the City's best interest to tear the road out now. He said, for practical purposes we lost room for a bicycle to be on a road on that section. He suggested we apply whatever money the Committee decides upon to the trails or sidewalk program or to a future road. He said the road is coming from a two-lane to a four -lane road. Mr. Hopper has already offered to pay any additional costs to match this section with the south end. He said he doesn't know whether the $8000 number is a good number or not as he isn't in this business. Ron Petrie said the $8000 is an extremely rough number based on $20 per square yard. He said just asphalt with an asphalt binder base is $26 per square yard. Alderman Jordan suggested that since we don't know the exact figure, the Committee should move to accept the road as it is now and then assess the monetary penalty when they have the correct figures to work with. He said he wants it in the record that the monetary penalty amount only will be deferred to the next Street Committee meeting. In response to a question from Alderman Ferrell, Ron Petrie said there would likely be more cost on top of the $26 per square yard. He said there is about four feet of hillside on the project requiring other material. Alderman Jordan moved that the City continue on with the road as is but with a monetary penalty. Staff will put the figures together and the amount of the penalty will be assessed at the next meeting. Alderman Ferrell seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. 4. Discussion to amend the agreement with the Arkansas Highway & Transportation Department for the Gregg Street Widening Project (AR Highway 180) between Fulbright Expressway and Township Road. Ron Petrie handed out a summary of facts on the project. He said that in 2001 the City agreed that we would pay for all utility relocations and right-of-way acquisitions as well as widening Township ourselves, even though it is a State highway. After the construction was complete, it would become a City street. Since then the State has bid the project out on three different occasions. The latest bid came in at $6.84 million and according to the published Transportation Improvement Plan, the State had budgeted only $6 million for the project. Since then the Highway Dept. has contacted the City and said they want to rethink the project and they would appreciate any consideration the City could give to helping contribute to the project so the contract can be awarded. The State has proposed that the City contribute $800,000 for the project and eliminate the part of the agreement that says the City has to widen Township now. They would turn it over to the City and as a City street we could widen it whenever we want to. Mr. Petrie submitted to the Committee a summary of the cost that the City has already paid for both of these projects and the remaining funds for each. We have spent approximately $1.9 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 9 of 13 million with all the utility adjustments. For Township we have spent $57,000. This has been almost completely done in-house. We still have $55,000 remaining for Gregg Ave. and a little over $2 million for Township. Mr. Petrie said the State has also approached Rogers on one of their projects with a similar proposal. Rogers agreed to pay for half of their project, so they have set a precedent. However, Fayetteville is only tentatively agreeing to $800,000. Mayor Coody said when we first started talking about Gregg Ave., we knew we wanted it improved out to the Mall area. Staff worked out a deal with Jonathon Barnett and the Highway Dept. where they would do the improvements to Gregg and then de -map it. Staff went forward with right-of-way purchases and utility work. Now the bids the State is getting in are 30% higher than they budgeted. They find themselves in the same bind as the City with escalating costs and not enough money budgeted to cover it on these projects. They have said they will have to walk away from this job unless the City can contribute more money. He told the State that the City would consider putting in the $800,000 if the State commits the $6 million. But he said the State would have to ensure that the City does not have to do the work on Township because that's probably where the money would have to be drawn from to come up with the $800,000. The representative from the State said he would run that through his committee and although he couldn't guarantee it, he felt pretty certain he could make it happened. In response to a question from Alderman Ferrell, Mayor Coody explained that Highway 180 is Gregg Ave. from I540 to Township. Then Township from Gregg to Hwy 71 (the L shape) is Hwy 180. The State was going to be improving Gregg, the City was going to widen Township And then they were going to de -map the entire portion. Alderman Ferrell said he thought the State was going to cost -share with the City on Township from Gregg to North College. Mayor Coody said the only cost share was that we were going to move the utility and obtain the rights-of-way. Alderman Marr said he thinks it is a good start to begin talks with the Highway Dept. instead of having them walk away from the project. But it does concern him that the amount of traffic on Township between Gregg Ave. and College Ave. is incredible. He said there are times of the day that you can't get in or out of Township. So the improvements discussed for that section are an extremely important part of the agreement. He said if the plan is to take money from that part of the project, he would say we need to look to see if there is somewhere else it could be taken. He said when we improve Gregg Ave., we're going to make the Township portion even worse. Mayor Coody said that is an option. He was just trying to think of a pot from which we could pull $800,000. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 10 of 13 Alderman Marr said he doesn't think we should walk away from the project. He thinks we need to figure out a way to make the project work. He asked if there are any other accounts or any other places from which we could pull the money. Ron Petrie said there is $2 million sitting in the Township road funds. It will be beyond the end of the year before the City completes construction plans and acquires the right-of-way. He said he hopes the bond issue will pass and it will free up money sitting in the Hwy. 265 project. In response to a question from Alderman Ferrell, Ron Petrie said in the agreement with Rogers, the State is turning the street over to the city. He said Rogers and the AHTD had a specific agreement that Rogers would pay for right-of-way and utility relocation and pay $750,000. When bids for the project had been rejected three times, Rogers offered to pay 50% of the project or $2.7 million. Alderman Ferrell said the citizens think the street is going to be widened and although it is a lot of money, the City just needs to figure out a way to do it. Alderman Marr said both Ward 2 and Ward 3 citizens have talked about this project. Also, when Sam's Club gets built and people begin to cut through from Drake, it will add to the traffic. He doesn't believe the City can walk away from the project. We have to find a way to do it. Mayor Coolly said there's the possibility of taking money from several different pots and blend some funds; possibly even take some money out of the Wilson Springs money. He agrees we can't walk away from the project and he told the Highway Dept. we would find a way to make it work. Alderman Marr moved that the City move forward with the project, with the staff looking into areas from which to pull the $800,000 and bringing the options back to the Street Committee. Alderman Reynolds seconded the motion. There was a question about whether the issue needs to come before the Street Committee or before the full Council. Mayor Coolly stressed the need to move forward as quickly as possible so the bid that the Highway Dept. has now doesn't expire and force the project have to be bid again. Ron Petrie said eventually the project would have to go to the City Council. He said we can put this out on the table and at the point we have to cut a check to the Highway Dept., we will have to go before the Council for approval of the project and any budget adjustments associated with it. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 11 of 13 Alderman Marr said in terms of the Council evaluating this, the City has already spent $2 million dollars and they wouldn't want to throw that out the window. It is a project that is economic development to the Mall, to Sam's, etc. There is every reason in the world to do it. Mayor Coolly said the only question at this point is where we will be able to come up with the $800,000. In response to a question from Mayor Coolly, Ron Petrie said we were originally going to have to build Township to State standards. If the State turns it over to the City before it is improved, the City can do it in-house for a lot less money. He estimated that it would save somewhere around $500,000. Alderman Ferrell said he feels the issue should come back before the Street Committee once a source of the money is determined. Mayor Coolly urged the Committee to get it on the agenda as quickly as possible to avoid having to put the project out for bid again. In response to a question from Alderman Cook, Ron Petrie said he would complete the plans for the project no matter what the decision is. The plans may have had to be put on the shelf, but they would have been completed. He said we are too far along into the project to stop. Upon a vote of the Committee, the motion carried unanimously. 5. Discussion of the Van Asche Extension project bids. Alderman Jordan said Sweetser Construction submitted the low bid ($3,165,079.80) for this project. Alderman Marr asked what the original estimate on this project was. Ron Petrie said the original estimate for this project was around $2 million. He said the Street Committee significantly changed the scope of the project. At that time the changes in scope were estimated to be about $500,000 but the bid put them right at $1 million. He said in addition to the construction costs, there are significant costs associated with the railroad. The railroad is requiring that if we signalize that intersection, we must put the panels on the railroad and full signalization (pedestrian arms, etc.). That is a very costly installation, running at about $362,000. There is also money for utility and property acquisition. The total cost of the project, including additional engineering for inspection, is $4.1 million. We have participation from the developer at close to $1.5 million, so total cost to the City would be $2.6 million. The developers have agreed to pay their share immediately upon completion of the project. Temporarily, however, we would have to have the full amount ($4.1 million). After reimbursement, there will be a shortfall of $642,000. Mr. Petrie suggested a couple of options. The City can accept the low bid and pay 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 12 of 13 for the $642,000 from two funds: the project for Van Asche, Gregg to Garland and from the cost share project. The remainder would be a temporary loan from the General Fund for approximately six months until we are reimbursed by the developer. The second option is that we remove all items west of Gregg from the change of scope for the project. That would be a savings of $956,000. If we do that, we would need to either go out and rebid the project or use the negotiated procurement method. Alderman Cook asked for the negatives to option two. Ron Petrie said one negative is time. The second is you really can't signalize the intersection. Once you signalize the intersection, you get into railroad property and some of the specialized regulations. Therefore we wouldn't have a signal at Gregg and Van Asche until the City goes out and puts it up (and we can do it significantly cheaper than a contractor). Eventually the road will have to be extended and we'll have to pay to put in all the railroad improvements anyway. Alderman Reynolds asked why we can't force the railroad to upgrade their crossing if we are going to build the road. Ron Petrie said they feel they were there first and they'd appreciate it if we moved our road off their railroad. Alderman Jordan opened the floor to public comment Alderman Lucas said she is very much in favor of the project. Alderman Cook said he is sure it is needed but everything that has been talked about tonight is a matter of more money. There being no further public comment, Alderman Jordan brought the discussion back to the Committee. Alderman Marr moved that the project move forward with staff's first option (taking funds from the Van Asche, Gregg to Garland project and from the cost share project). Alderman Ferrell seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. 6. Recommendation to approve an engineerine contract with Carter & Burgess in the amount of $175,000.00 for the preliminary study of the Fayetteville Economic Corridor rp oiect. Ron Petrie said this is a project to improve access to the Mall, the hospital and other medical facilities. He explained the contract which outlines what needs to be done. He said it involves taking traffic counts on many intersections in this area and making a computer model of that 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes August 8, 2006 Page 13 of 13 information. Carter & Burgess will be doing an analysis and writing recommendations with cost estimates, etc. for a presentation to the Street Committee and City Council Alderman Marr said this is a part of the Federal allocation for the Fayetteville Economic Corridor and in order to be able to spend that money we have to have a study done. In response to a question from Alderman Lucas, Ron Petrie explained that the Fayetteville Economic Corridor encompasses Fullbright Expressway up Hwy. 71B to Millsap and Futrall and then I540 to the Johnson Exit. It is a very large area that was identified for improvement. The primary purpose of the project is to improve access to the Mall area and also the health care facilities in the area. This was the project for which the City received a Federal earmark. The money for this project is not coming from Federal funds however. The Committee had agreed to utilize City CIP funds that had been earmarked for Zion Rd. to get this study underway. When the item comes before the City Council, there will be a budget adjustment with it. Alderman Ferrell moved that the engineering contract be approved. Alderman Marr seconded the motion and it carried unanimously. 7. Scheduling the next Street Committee meeting The next Street Committee meeting was scheduled for August 22, 2006 at 4:30 p.m. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org