From: Elizabeth Klein
Sent: Thu Feb 15 14:48:38 2018
To: Gerald Fisher
Cc: Dan Huff
Subject: Re: ODOT HWY 211 Project - Informational
Importance: Normal
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Hi Gerald,
I feel your frustration and completely agree that something has to change with this process. Good luck meeting with the head of Region 1. If there's anything I can do to be supportive, just shout. We should demand an open house and invite the community in to discuss 211. The turnout to the meeting on Tuesday at Legends was impressive. It was standing room only.
RE: TSP - Of course I had to go do some of my own research on standard lane widths. :-)
I'm sure you have seen this "white paper" but thought it was helpful for me to understand the value of narrower lanes.
https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-design-elements/lane-width/
However, I would be concerned about the trucks that have to make turns and whether 11 feet would be more appropriate? Would love your thoughts.
Elizabeth Klein
City Council
City of Molalla
503-829-6855
eklein@cityofmolalla.com
From: "Gerald Fisher"
To: "Jimmy Thompson" , "Elizabeth Klein" , "Leota Childress" , "Glen Boreth" , "D Palumbo" , "K Swigart" , "C Dragowsky"
Cc: "Dan Huff"
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2018 1:17:02 PM
Subject: RE: ODOT HWY 211 Project - Informational
All,
You’ve heard me grouse about the bureaucracy of ODOT more than once because it spans over three agencies I’ve worked for in 17 years.
To put it into perspective the ridiculousness of their process, even though the money is federal dollars, we delivered the Molalla Avenue project at a total design and construction cost of $2,989,625.28. That included reconstructing a 2000 foot long roadway, curb and gutter both sides, sidewalks both sides, street lighting, street trees, new 10” water main and services, new 30” storm system, sewer repairs, a bike pavilion, stamped/colored sidewalk fronting the park, and decommissioning of three old oil tanks. The original Hwy 211 project cost for design and construction of approximately 840 feet of pavement widening with curb/gutter/sidewalk, 880 feet of filled in ditch and throw away asphalt pathway, and one wooden pedestrian bridge and approaches is $1,947,022. Half of the project does not include pavement widening. By the time ODOT ends up forcing oversized pathways and purchasing right-of-way that won’t be needed and will torn up during development of Bear Creek Ph 3, the project cost will have ballooned by approximately $654,000. That will eat up all of the $750,000 that Representative Lewis was able to secure for Molalla. Estimates to continue the widening from Bear Creek to Hezzie Lane adds approximately another $820,000. Add on the widening from the Urgent Care to Leroy Ave and that’s another $695,000, roughly. In total, that equates to $4,116,022 (1,947,022+654,000+820,000+695,000). To do widening with sidewalk in four small areas, a wooden pedestrian structure over Bear Creek, and a throw away asphalt pathway on one side of a roadway? Really? I have had long standing suspicions that Region 1 wants to find a reason to kill this project and suck the money over into other Metro projects. Their maneuvering during the project, starting at the IGA stage of the project and including this latest release of info to the public while keeping us in the dark, helps fuel my conspiracy theory opinion of their tactics.
To be clear, Tom Hamstra who is managing the project for ODOT is not at fault. He is a temporary employee who is trying to help Region 1 deliver projects that they don’t have the staff to manage or have completely screwed up. I have been working with him to shave costs but we have hit a brick wall with others he has no control over within ODOT.
ODOT in general is a collection of fiefdoms that are siloed to a level that that makes them literally incapable of delivering projects at a reasonable cost and reasonable amount of time. They also have built layers of rules and red tape that make it almost impossible to streamline projects for local agencies. I once spent two and a half years in design review at Wilsonville (Region 1) because the silos couldn’t agree on design requirements for a lane widening at a City intersection next to an interchange. When in Silverton (Region 2), they mismanaged a Safe Routes to School project that cost the school a covered bike parking area for the kids. With the latest ADA lawsuit, because they couldn’t build ramps to meet ADA requirements, ODOT is leaning to requiring that all ADA ramps be surveyed, engineered, constructed, and re-inspected for compliance. And wait, you may have to reconstruct the pavement in that area if slopes aren’t to their liking. I guess a smart level, smart contractor, and smart inspector don’t cut it anymore.
I will be speaking with our state representative about all of this and Dan and I plan to meet with the head of Region 1. I’m not the only PW Director or City Engineer that has beat their head against a wall about the incompetence of ODOT and its bureaucrats. This is a common theme in conversations with my peers at other agencies and something has to change or the public will have all of our hides even though we are not the agency at fault.
I think we should be able to do the following and will be taking this up with the Region 1 manager:
· Modify our cross section standard. This is already in the works in the new TSP and my only hurdle is to get ODOT off of their love of travel lanes that are 12 feet or wider. A width of 12 feet is recommended once you get up to 50 MPH.
· Fill in the gap between industrial way and Safeway. Do a small ROW purchase to provide a 60 foot cross section. No environmental. It’s cheaper assume contamination, dig it out, and dispose of it the material than hiring experts to sample and tell you it is or isn’t contaminated.
· Build a pavement widening with bike lane, curb and gutter, and 6-foot sidewalk from Industrial Way to west side of Molalla Forest Road.
· Build an AC approach to a wooden pedestrian bridge.
· Build wooden pedestrian bridge and pier walk to the east until out of wetland area (about 100’).
· Install storm and fill in ditch along Bear Creek Ph 3. Construct 6-foot wide AC path.
· Build a pavement widening with bike lane, curb and gutter, and 6-foot sidewalk from Bear Creek Ph 3 to Hezzie Lane.
· Build a pavement widening with bike lane, curb and gutter, and 8-foot sidewalk (Commercial Area) from Hezzie Lane to Leroy Avenue.
If this was a City project on a City street, I would have no problem designing and building it for less than $1,947,022. Reason? I get to make the design decisions that doesn’t require a committee approval and several manager signatures. It baffles me why ODOT, working in a City with their PW Director, can’t do the same thing.
On another related topic, I am pushing a reduction in roadway widths for vehicles in the update to the TSP (See attachment). The reduction includes reducing the travel lanes to 10 feet and parking stalls to 7 feet for all roadways including Hwy 211 thru town. Downtown will still have 8’ parking stalls The turn pockets in the three lane section will be reduced from 14’ to 12’. I want to do this to save on ROW purchase in the project above too. The snag is I have run up against resistance to this from the ODOT lead on this project as she doesn’t think the fiefdoms will approve the reduction in lane width on the highway thru town. I’m gonna fight that too. If the City, the highway runs thru, doesn’t have a problem with it, then why should they?
So ends my rant.
Regards,
Gerald Fisher, P.E. | Public Works Director
City of Molalla
117 N Molalla Ave. | PO Box 248 |Molalla, OR 97038
Office: 503.829.6855 | Direct: 503.759.0218
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From: Dan Huff [mailto:dhuff@cityofmolalla.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2018 10:41 AM
To: 'Jimmy Thompson' ; 'Elizabeth Klein' ; 'Leota Childress' ; Glen Boreth ; 'D Palumbo' ; K Swigart ; 'Cindy Dragowsky'
Cc: Gerald Fisher
Subject: ODOT HWY 211 Project - Informational
Mayor and Council – Included with this e-mail is a transcript of an ODOT Staff person speaking to people about the Highway 211 project who attended an Open House for 213/Union Mills improvements on Tuesday, February 13th. Interestingly, the meeting notice did not include statements that information regarding 211 would be part of the meeting and ODOT has yet to have an Open House for 211. The other issue is that the photo is a project description poster of the 211 project that was presented during the meeting. However, the hand out language for the project description is different that the poster. Staff received an amendment to our current project IGA that uses different language yet again regarding this project.
We had discussions with ODOT 2 weeks ago about the escalating costs regarding this project and asked that we identify where the escalation is occurring. We have not heard back from them. Somewhere along the line the pathway has widened from a six-foot temporary asphalt path to a 10-foot pedestrian/bikeway path. This would in fact require additional right-of-way and escalate cost.
Bottom line is that the additional $750,000 Representative Lewis worked hard in providing to the project is being sucked up internally by ODOT and reducing what actually is constructed on the ground. We are preparing responses to ODOT regarding this matter.
Dan Huff
City Manager
City of Molalla, Oregon
(503) 829-6855
_______________________________________________________________________________
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