Dollars Climb for Haggith Creek Crossing Repair
(at right, image of undermining of Willowcale Road at Haggith Creek – image courtesy City of Prince George)
The City had budgeted $1.8 million for the repair to the crossing but the submissions from 5 project bidders were all well over that budgeted amount.
The lowest bid was just over $2.5 million from Belvedere Place Contracting Ltd. Allowing for a 10% contingency in the event there are surprises, means the budget for the project will be boosted to $2.78 million.
The highest submission was from Western Industrial Contractors Ltd, with a bid of $3.64 million.
The slope has been “unravelling”, undermining the road. The City first examined the issue in late February of this year, and at that time indicated the heavy loads moving to and from sawmills, may be contributing to further deterioration., and says the primary cause of the problem is the old standard corrugated culvert that has rotted and in some places, split, allowing dirt to spill into the culvert and cause sink holes in Willowcale Road.
Late last month, the urgent need for repair had the City abandon its plan to borrow the money through the Municipal finance Authority and instead, borrow from its own Endowment fund so concrete could be poured and properly set before freeze up.
The new crossing will replace the culvert with a full bridge, and the concrete needs to be poured before freeze up. so this won’t happen again.
The project calls for the aging and crumbling metal culvert to be replaced with a full bridge.
Comments
This is the cost of having no one at city hall watching the infrastructure and having a proper maintenance program suitable for the level of use one should expect. We saved a few dollars over the years ignoring that road and now the city pays tenfold on the saving .
I would suggest the City engineers for the past 20 years, didn’t do their due diligence. Taxpayers now pay for it.
Maybe the city needs someone doing the budget for projects like this who has a rudimentary understanding of the issue.
Next, they will and are having problems on Lansdowne hill. It already started washing away and they put what looks like asphalt on the edge closest to the river. It is starting to wash away on another spot. Maybe to much legal turmoil on who owns the property?
It certainly looks as though the City has dragged their feet on this location, for too long.
The road there started ‘washing out’ so to speak, some time ago, they finally go to tender in July?
Sounds like they were “hoping” the bids would be around 1.8 million, but with 4 contenders all well above the budget, it is quite obvious that someone is not being realistic in their budgetary expectations.
Looks like a lot of work to dig it all out and put a bridge in place.
Did they look at installing a new, larger, polymer culvert?
That would have to be much less expense, compared to a bridge.
metalman.
Comments for this article are closed.