Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 15, 2010,
Item 3
Number 3 is to receive comments regarding a request to temporarily close allen road from pinnacle road to easy street in precinct three for construction of 16-inch water lines and a pumping station beginning june 16, 2010 and continuing through april 17, 2011, or until construction is completed. Move that the public hearing be opened.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> my name is david grier from t.n.r. Traffic engineering. The city of austin is -- is going to be constructing a water line in this area and contractor has requested a closure for this construction of allen road for 100 days. And the -- as far as that, the contractor was asking for more, but we didn't feel that we had support from the community or from own staff that we figured any longer than 100 days would be reasonable at this time. So we're asking for 100 days.
>> so a request for an additional 200 days is dropped.
>> yes.
>> because we did get i think an e-mail phone call to that effect.
>> this is also, i might add, right next to -- in the vicinity of the high school, westlake high school. And the closure would be between june 16th and september 23rd. So it will slightly overlap the school year. But mainly during the summer months.
>> any comments? Yes, sir? Name and -- we would be happy to get your comments.
>> i'm -- hello, commissioner.
>> [laughter]
>> hard to see you there for a moment.
>> i'm chip ray, representing the easy street neighborhood association. So i think that we're actually representing a significantly larger population and it was our -- the reason that we are here this morning is that it was our understanding that there was an application to close the road for 300 days, so it's a bit of a surprise to us that's been withdrawn. We are certainly supportive of that. We would have some other recommendations in the mean time. There is a -- probably a three week overlap after -- after -- even with a 100 day closure, three week overlatch the school year and -- overlap with the school year, i will point out in a minute that camp craft, west bank intersection is a very complex and potentially dangerous one. We think that -- that perhaps posting the traffic control officer during that -- certainly during the school year would be helpful there. I think that -- that, too, the county could more aggressively enforce the no parking ordinance on camp craft and allen roads, which would alleviate some of our safety concerns. And then, lastly, ensuring that -- that the road closure signage on allen road is prominent enough to minimize tawrnd traffic on the cull -- turn around traffic on the cul de sac, it would be deeply appreciated by the neighborhood. Our biggest concern far and away is safety. West bank drive serves, as you know, as a primarily arterial connecting much of westlake with five campuses, westlake high school, eanes elementary, trinity, hill country and cedar creek elementary. In addition most of the residents in the woods of westlake and west creek subdivisions use west bank as their primary route to travel into town, particularly during peak commuting periods and during the school year it's an extremely busy road. In fact on sunday mornings, promise land west church which worships in the westlake high school campus is compelled to have a travis county deputy directing traffic before and after their services, even on sunday mornings. And then the sheriff's department typically has a speed trap on west bank drive during -- a couple of times at least during the school week to control traffic speeds on west bank in front of the high school. While allen road is closed, the residents of easy street, allen road and camp craft, which includes 19 four-plexes, so we have got 76 living units on camp craft, as well as five office buildings, there on camp craft, will have no alternative but to use the camp craft west bank intersection as their sole means of getting to and from their properties. Negotiating a left turn on to west bank from camp craft is challenging apparently. So much so that most of our neighborhood, including those four-plexes uses the pinnacle road, west bank intersection because there's a traffic light there. The additional traffic resulting from the closure will exponentially increase the intersections risk profile as traffic backs up and impatient drivers make decisions that they wouldn't otherwise make, including a lot of young high school students who park along camp craft there. And real quickly -- okay. Just -- just by way of orienting you, here's loop 360, here's the west bank arterial that connects to Bee Caves over here, you've got eanes elementary, you have trinity school, obviously westlake high school, and then down pinnacle you have got hill country middle school and cedar creek elementary. For those of us on easy street, allen road and then the four-plexes on camp craft, this point and this point are the only points of ingress and egress. The -- the complexity of this -- so at this point, the proposal is to close allen road from pinnacle to this point, for 100 days. Leaving just this intersection as ingress and egress. The complexity is that you have got a student cross walk here, student cross walk here, you have got five office buildings with parking on camp craft, you have got student dropoff here, you've got student dropoff here, you've got school buses exiting here.
>> no traffic control here. And that -- that -- a typical day you've got theoretically students crossing at the cross walk. We know students tend to be a little less formal in their choices of where to cross the road. So i think our big concern is just pushing all of that traffic on to west bank to make that left-hand turn. Particularly given the considerations at stake, it's not clear to us why allen road needs to be closed for any longer than it takes to lay the pipe under the road. We have been told that that's a maximum of 90 days. So -- so i guess we would -- we would just ask the commissioners to -- to ensure that -- that we're closing the road for the absolute minimum period of time. From our perspective, all we're doing is shifting the burden and the safety concerns from the contractor to the neighborhood, students, the staff of the schools and -- and students' families. So we -- we appreciate your consideration.
>> so the request is to expedite the project completion. And i guess when the -- when the fall semester starts, we ought to i guess monitor the situation and take whatever steps we need to -- to ensure safety.
>> that's right.
>> probably won't be as serious this summer i guess because school is out.
>> correct.
>> is that what i'm hearing.
>> although even with school out, you know, again promise land feels the need to have traffic control out there on sunday mornings which is the least traveled period. So even while school is out, during peak commuting periods in the mornings and in the afternoons, you really have an issue. You have got cars flying down west bank from 360. That intersection at camp craft is -- is a challenging one, there's a slight uphill there. And so you have got -- folks trying to, you know, squeeze in between traffic.
>> has t.n.r. Contacted tcso at all about any kind of traffic concerns at camp craft and west bank?
>> no, we haven't contacted them yet. But we're in agreement that that would be a good idea.
>> and to what extent do -- do we have the ability to beef up crossing guards during the school year at the two school crossings? I'm assuming there's crossing guards there.
>> no. The county doesn't provide crossing guards for high schools or junior highs, just elementaries.
>> just elementaries, okay. We do have cross walks that have in-ground flashers that are activated by the pedestrians that they can use for that purpose. Because it is a fairly busy road. Cawrntdly right now -- currently right now a lot of traffic does use camp craft to get on to west bank, most of the businesses and offices over there do use that. The residents on easy street would be the ones that would be affected the most because they usually go down to pin dowo pinnacle where the light is and now they will have to go down to camp craft.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> we need you on the microphone. That snaps right off.
>> chip, grab that big one that pops right off.
>> i can't emphasize enough these four-plexes do the same. Just want to point out this is the cross walk that has the in ground markings. This one does not. This is the one that i think is more of a hazard.
>> that's correct, yeah. The reason that we have the in ground flashers is because there's a parking lot across the road where a lot of their students do park. That's their main crossing point. But there are some that park on camp craft and walk across. The whole area is a 20 miles an hour school zone when flashing as well.
>> are there -- is it cost prohibit active, are there any -- prohibitive, are there any issues with putting the light activated cross walk or is that warranted for the long hall?
>> it costs about between 15 and 20,000 probably to get something like that in. But it is something that could be done. I think it might be more cost beneficial to have tcso officers actually running traffic or controlling traffic at the intersection during peak period. I think morning peak would be the most important one.
>> is this within the jurisdiction of westlake pd.
>> no, it's not, it's travis county.
>> sounds like me it's going to be important to have a really good communication linkage between the residents and directly with t.n.r. Whoever can do the problem solving on the spot. Has that been developed yet? Does the neighborhood know who to -- you can always go through my office. But to go quickly, a problem or issue put on the table --
>> we have started some conversations with the neighborhood associations. We actually put it on the contractor to initiate the neighborhood association meetings and get the signoff from the neighborhoods, we put that on the contractors back. But we have talked with them since then. Definitely will be able to work with them, definitely.
>> as long as they have a telephone number to call.
>> we do. The neighborhood association has met with the contractors and the city three times. Starting well over a year ago.
>> okay. So the -- it's up to 100 days, but sooner if possible. We will monitor the traffic situation and -- and if we need to take further action based on what happens, just bring the item back.
>> yeah, that's the plan.
>> monitor by the -- by the t.n.r. As well as the sheriff's office if necessary.
>> correct, yes. And we'll be talking to the neighborhood association. I think that it's going to be really important that that overlap when school starts will be the time to -- we really need to communicate and figure out what to do, presents a problem.
>> is it premature to request that a traffic control officer be posted once school starts?
>> i think we ought to monitor the situation and we ought to know when school starts whether we need one out there or two or three or more. I do think we ought to respond to the facts. And it may be that summer is faster with more traffic than we anticipate. If so, i think we ought to respond to it.
>> thank.
>> is that okay? But we know the situation will get much worse traffic-wise when school starts just because of the number of students and staff, et cetera. Yeah, i'm -- i think we ought to try to stay on top of it and respond accordingly.
>> i think -- i agree. But i also would think that we need to just go ahead and plan to have sheriff's officer there on the first day or two of school because we won't know until it starts how complicated it may be.
>> anything else on this item? Please come forward. If you would give us your name, we would be happy to get your comments.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> we need you to speak into the mic.
>> give your name.
>> my name is tim
>> [indiscernible], i'm director of transportation for westlake high school. I just wanted to mention a couple of things that might help in your decision making. First of all, our first day of school is august the 24th. Okay. I do concur with mr. Bray with the traffic issue at the corner of west bank and camp craft. And i would strongly recommend to you that we have some traffic control at that point. Other thing that i would like to bring to your attention, you mentioned the lighted cross walks. We are having maintenance issues with those lights. I understand they are -- the property of the county. We have been told repeatedly that the hardware associated with those lights are obsolete and no longer available. So we do have a reliability issue with those lights that i would like to make you aware of. Would certainly request your assistance.
>> okay.
>> are the lights -- in other words, what you are saying is they are dysfunctional at times?
>> right now we are having a reliability issue. I could certainly get back with you as to the number of days and say a 30 day period they are inoperable. But it's pretty frequent.
>> well, that staff right there should be able to take this input. Especially because it appears there will be an overlap on some of the things going on when school starts, we want to make sure that all of the safety mechanisms are in place and we go from there. So staff, i guess, if you --
>> actually --
>> you need to take the time to -- to -- whatever is dysfunctional there and get close to that time of the year, we need to make sure that it's operable.
>> that's exactly right. Yeah, we're aware of the problem, too. We have an interlocal with the city of austin to maintain those for us.
>> right, well, whatever.
>> and those in-ground flashers get run over all day, they are a maintenance problem. We have been talking with the city about maybe readvising what we have out there as well. I'm meeting with them. There's newer technologies where it's not in-ground flashers things like that. I'm still working with the city but we are aware of the problem and those are a maintenance nightmare. We probably wouldn't put the same system out there again if we do an improvement.
>> we concur with the challenges that you have there. Our concern now is later become -- they are becoming so erratic in operation that we're seeing motorists are getting used to the fact well it's flashing, but there's non-there, why worry about it. When the converse is true. And this is something that i personally witness on a daily basis being in the transportation business. I would really encourage us to get long-term solution before we have a tragedy. So -- thank you so much.
>> thank you.
>> make sure that he has your name and phone number.
>> i sure will.
>> anybody else on this item?
>> mccracken:
>> we need you to grab that microphone, ma'am.
>> my name is jo anne howard, i live right here, at the corner easy street by but facing allen. My concern is the extent to which allen is closed. I understand that the water pipe the work may be here. Parking vehicles in this area would really directly affect my property in that just from the noise factor and having large machines here. So i urge the closure to be limited as much as possible to this direct area impacted by the water main.
>> okay.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Anybody else?
>> one other comment real briefly, i was also instructed by the district that if the contractor need additional lead out, we could make that available at the corner of camp craft and west bank. Again it's something that has been used in the past. If this has created a problem for lay down for the contractor we would be happy to work with you. Again, thank you so much and appreciate your cooperation.
>> thank you very much.
>> yes, sir?
>> good morning, my name is gary hampton, i'm the c.e.o. Of keystone construction, we are the general contractor on this project. This is a very unique project for us. We have such a tight site for the pump station and then also we have -- trying to save a lot of trees. And then we also have the main egress and ingress of our -- of our project is on allen pump station. So we're going to have a tremendous amount of large trucks, 18 wheelers, dump trucks, construction equipment coming in and out of this lot. Through allen pump station. There's just no way for these trucks to enter the project's lot where the pump station is being built to turn around or anything else. So all of the unloading and turning around will have to happen on allen pump station. So not only do we have these two 16-inch lines going down allen pump station, but we've also got to build this large pump station, also. So that's why we have a safety concern not only for the line work going down allen pump station, but for the construction of the pump station, also. That's why we initially asked for allen pump station to be shut down for the duration of the project. But then we had meetings with the neighborhood association and the county and everybody else and we understand the problems getting back on camp craft and we appreciate that. We also have safety concerns of our own. We want to keep children off of allen, we want to keep traffic off of allen while we've got a lot of heavy equipment and trucks and stuff in that area. So we have our safety concerns, also. We had originally agreed to try to work with everybody and cut down from 300 days to six months. We felt like once we got the shell of the pump station done, and the 16-inch lines done, we would be in good shape to not have the heavy, large, 18 wheelers and large cranes and stuff like that coming in and the -- to the jobsite. So we felt like six months was more realistic and we would even work on that to try to get less than that. I realize the inconvenience. I also know that it's not just the two 16-inch lines that we are concerned about, we really are concerned about the pump station. We will do everything we can once the road is shut down to not only expedite the pump station and the 16-inch lines at the same time, i feel like the 90, 100 days is really too short to even do the 16-inch lines. We cannot do both of them at the same time. We have to do one at a time. We are going to put a trencher in there, there is flintstone out there. If the trencher doesn't work we have to use hoe ramps. We have already had to do that on the pump station excavation. It's an extremely slow process f. The trencher does work, if we don't hit the flint, we will have to trench one 16-inch, backfill it, jump over, trench the other 16-inch and go back and dig out the first 16-inch, lay the lines, come back, do all of the pressure testing, everything else before we even start repaving allen road. So it's a long process. I -- i strongly feel that the 100 days is not going to be enough. But we'll do everything that we can to complete it as quickly as we can. I guess my biggest question is when we get to the 100 days and we find out that -- that maybe we need some additional time, what would be the process to get that additional time so not to hurt the project? That's my main concern. We will do everything that we can to finish it, but we wouldn't want to go to the 100 days and shut down and wait a month to get approval to get an extension of the 100 days. So is there any way that we can have some kind of process agreed to now that -- that if we see that we need extended time that we could do that without impacting the project.
>> okay. You know, we're aware of the additional time the contractor is asking for. The original plans, done by the city of austin, was only for 90 days to close down the road for the pipes to be put in the ground. The pump station they were planning on doing stage knowledge on their property -- staging on the property next to it until i think some of the city of austin employees found out we can't cut down these trees, they are protected. So the contractor is looking at other ways to stage some of their materials and their construction of the pump station itself. We felt that the -- the time for construction of the pump station, any construction trucks or 18 wheelers going into that area could be done with flaggers. And that sort of a thing, also doing it off peak time when traffic is coming in with all of the students and everything. We didn't feel like keeping the road closed that long was probably the most appropriate thing for the community. And we don't have support from the community for keeping it shut that long as well. I think there's ways that the contractor can work with the city i mean the westlake high school. They do have that location over there at camp craft and west bank for staging materials if they need that. And then any dropoffs for the pump station can be done with flaggers. We feel that could be done safely. So that's why we're only proposing the 100 days for the closure itself. The -- the lines being put in within -- they were supposed to be put in within 90 days, that was the original schedule done by the city of austin on this. We feel that -- we feel that they should be able to do that within 90 days.
>> okay. The district representative a minute ago offered i guess school district property for staging. Does that help you any?
>> the only thing that would help would maybe be to park some cars and things like that over there. If you are going to use that for staging of materials, we're talking about large beams, large pumps, large everything on this project. If you stage that area over there and use that to store material temporarily, then all that does is that you are going have to somehow other ear another get that same material from the same traffic to the same location. We don't really feel like that's beneficial to us. We appreciate the offer. We would love to use it if we thought it was beneficial. We just don't feel like that would be beneficial.
>> do we need to give y'all additional time to work through these issues?
>> i'm hearing two different things here. And i'm afraid we should take a little bit more time to find out what the real time is. If we promise 100 days but they don't meet it, then we're right back here knowing full well it may be months longer than 100 days. So i think the contractor and the staff recommendation have to come together or -- or we're going to have a problem at the end of the project.
>> you have representatives from the neighborhood association, you have got the city of austin that really needs to be involved, then you have keystone that i guess was -- had the winning bid. Right?
>> that's correct.
>> for 90 days, but the circumstances have changed. And in the backup it said the city wants to preserve some tree that's are one of these -- trees that are on one of these sites that you had planned to use for staging, then we have t.n.r. And concerns that may involve the county sheriff. You have five parties there that ought to be invited to the first meeting, not including commissioner huber. So --
>> can i make a statement real quick?
>> i think we ought to take a little additional time to work this out. Normally we don't resolve these issues in commissioners court. We hear a whole lot of comments and we end up asking the parties to sit down and try to work through the issues. If they can reach a compromise, bring that com compromise back to us. If you cannot reach a compromise, that should be back in a manner that we could surface the issues and then vote on them. How does that sound. I don't know that we will accomplish anything else today.
>> can i say one thing?
>> no, sir, we need to move on --
>> that's what i'm saying --
>> can we start while the school is out --
>> mr. Keystone, we need to move on, you need to chat with the city of austin, too. We are trying to accommodate them. You submitted a bid, the circumstances have changed. That's beyond our control. So residents i don't know that we have any other choice. The order before us says 100 days, the backup said 100 days plus 200 days and the -- the company here is saying they need six months, which is not 100 days. And that's where we are unfortunately.
>> we are mindful that it's -- it's everyone's advantage to start as soon as possible. We are mindful of that.
>> okay.
>> so this is a public hearing. Move that it be closed.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 2:35 PM
