The in basket: Chuck Hower of Harper in South Kitsap asks
“why the state road administrators give contractors so much time to
accomplish
projects that could obviously be completed in much shorter
time.
“Specifically, I was asking about the new Olalla-Burley
interchange,” Chuck said, “completion for which the state has
allowed two years – two years of
traffic disruption for a project that would seem easily to
be
constructed in a few months if sufficient resources were devoted
to it.
“The mind boggles at the thought of the bunch of
turkeys running such operations today, were they to have been in
charge
back in the early 1940s when similar projects had to be
accomplished
quickly,” Chuck concluded.
The out basket: Brenden Clarke of the Port Orchard project
office for state highways is the project engineer on the
Olalla-Burley job and offers the following:
“There are a number of reasons why transportation projects take
longer
now than they did in the ’40s.
“One of the primary reasons, and one
that certainly applies to Burley-Olalla, is traffic volumes and
allowing
traffic to proceed through the work area.
“Not too long ago, traffic volumes were low enough in many areas
to allow work to occur that required lane closures or restrictions
during the day. With traffic
volumes as high as they are currently, we can not allow lane
closures
during the day in most cases without severely impacting traffic.
“In addition, lane shifts or temporary detours to accommodate
work
activities must now be designed for reasonable speeds and must
meet
safety standards. Back in the day, a gravel 10-foot-wide lane
around
the work area would suffice. Restrictions on lane closures and
the need
to construct adequate temporary bypass lanes adds time and costs
to
(state) projects.
“Environmental permitting is much more stringent now that
even 10 years ago. This certainly applies to Burley-Olalla as SR
16
traverses over two fish passages within the project limits and
is
adjacent to numerous wetland areas. Environmental permit
compliance adds time and cost to (our) projects.
“The Burley Olalla project is scheduled to be completed in two
years due
to the above issues, and the need to revise the horizontal
alignment of
(Highway) 16. Due to geometric and environmental
constraints, (Highway) 16 will be rebuilt to go over Burley-Olalla
(Road). This will require that temporary
lanes be constructed to detour traffic around the current
alignment. Our contractor is using the new on- and off-ramp
alignment
for this detour which will reduce costs and time, but work
cannot begin
on the new alignment until traffic is shifted. In
addition, work
on the new bridge will not be able to begin until the detour
alignments
are constructed.
“Weather is another factor that increases the duration of
projects in
Washington state. It is difficult to perform earth work in
inclement weather, and we do not allow paving or striping to
occur
unless weather conditions are favorable. We specified the
use of
material on the Burley project that can withstand some poor
weather
conditions, but if it gets too wet it will become
unworkable.”
Brenden said bad weather causes delays imposed by environmental
restrictions.
“Some additional time savings could have been realized on
the
Burley-Olalla project by utilizing pre-cast structures for the
bridge,” he said, “but the cost was prohibitive, considering
the limited time savings that would have been realized.
“We have a very
motivated contractor and are working with them to reduce the
duration of
the project, but two years is not unreasonable for a new
interchange in
Washington.
“If we were constructing an interchange in Arizona with
lower
traffic volumes, I could guarantee that an interchange could
be
constructed in less than a full year, assuming level terrain,”
Brenden said.