Travis County Commissioners Court
May 15, 2007
Item 17
17 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to approve amendment number one to Texas department of transportation advance funding agreements for bridge replacement for rehabilitation of the state system for bridges 113 and 154 in precinct one.
>> good morning judge and Commissioners. I'm steve from tn r. I have with me two representatives from tex dot. This item is to request your approval of an amendment to an existinadding agreement. The thing unique about this one is that for a fires time for us, the existing structure that we have been working to replace will be remaining in place. During the design process, tex dot got into the environmental clearance process and determined that these two structures are of historical significance. And they are telling us that if we are going to use federal funds for the project, that we need to follow their guidelines for how we manage these types of structures. And it means that they will spend the monies to renovate the structure, bring it up to snuff, and afterwards we would be responsible for maintaining them until they fall down, I suppose. So what we are getting out of this, we getting two new bridges and instead of eliminating the existing two structures, they will also remain in service. The traffic across them will be modified instead of a two two-lane two-way operation, they are too narrow for that it will be converted for a one-way. The new bridge which is designed to accommodate two lanes, will be striped for one lane in the other direction. This is a significant change in how we have dealt with these projects in the past. This is the first time where we are going to keep the existing structures in place place. Anticipating the types of questions you might have about this process, I've asked tex dot to join us to answer those questions.
>> this here I think is pretty significant. Again, I'd like to applaud tex dot for stepping up to the plate, not only renovat renovating the only bridges, 154 and 113. Those are historic bridges and have been around a long time, which I think is pretty significant to kind of retain on some of these things. Those things can continue to stay existing. My question to you, the new bridges that will be added to the list, they will be the full, I guess, operational type, middle east all the necessary requirements for today's type of traffic flow as far as what we are doing here herehere. Is that correct ?
>> yes, sir, that is correct.
>> state your name.
>> for the record.
>> my name is thom remel with the Texas department of transportation bridge division.
>> I guess, when do you think, I guess, all of this with this amended change, in other words, we are just amending basically the amend amendment where by we are now saying okay, Travis County, we are going to renovate these things and take care of all of this, but then you will have to maintain the bridge there after, after we go and do our initial renovating to the existing bridges. My question though, when will all of this take place as far as what tex dot is able to do?
>> tex dot's project will include renovating the existing historic bridges, bringinging them up to current standards.
>> right.
>> building the new bridge, and at that point when the project is complete, that is when Travis County will have the full responsibility for maintaining those bridges, just as any other bridge replacement project.
>> as far as the viewing public, it would be good if we have, I guess steve, any way possible, working with tex dot and of course the county being involved, do we have any idea of when this process will actually commence after this amended portions have taken place in the court decides to approve this ?
>> construction schedule ?
>> yes, we have the schedule to go to bid in January for letting.
>> for January ?
>> yes.
>> this is nicole coronado with tex dot. I work with the north Austin area office.
>> okay.
>> I guess the point I wanted to make certain that you all understood, these bridges today are about 80 years old.
>> yeah.
>> these guys are going to renovate but you can't replace every component of it. You can't replace the foundation. They wouldn't even ask us to try to keep them in service if they didn't think they were sound, though. But right now we're accustom accustomed of starting with a brand new bridge and minimal maintenance effort that goes with that. Now we have a bridge, there are component 80 years old, and we are going to have to watch a little closer than a brand spanking new bridge. I wanted you to understand that there might be a little more maintenance effort than you would see with a new structure.
>> the bridges definitely would still be in use.
>> yes.
>> dnr recommends approving of this amendment. It's a unique, it's a definite change to the way we've done this in the past. I thought it was important to bring it up.
>> I'd like the move approval of this whenever the time is.
>> second.
>> thank you.
>> any questions ?
>> okay. Thank you very much.
>> it costs a substantial amount of money to build the new parts of both of these. Is that state and federal money ?
>> yes, sir, 80 percent federal and 20 percent state.
>> we don't have any problem with the right-of-way acquisition responsibility for Travis County ?
>> no , sir, that is the norm for us to deal with right of way and deal with utility relocation. We already last week acquired a great deal of right-of-way for 113. We are well within our budget for that.
>> thank you all for coming.
>> appreciate your patience. All in favor? Hotethotefavor that passes by unanimous vote.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 16, 2007, 8:00 AM