S Main Street

INTRODUCTION

The City has asked that WisDOT initiate and effect the State Highway “89” improvement from Madison Street south to Topel Street. State Highway “89” is a connecting highway with significant deterioration of the existing asphalt overlay which is over concrete in portions of the roadway. The work will consist of reconstructing the existing roadway and extending the urban curb and gutter section where none currently exists.

The State has extended a contract to the City to complete the work with the conditions specified in the agreement included in the packet.

BACKGROUND

The State manages major reconstruction project for the Street and the City is responsible for regular maintenance. Major reconstruction should occur about once every twenty to thirty years depending on street condition. The last major reconstruction of S. Main Street by the State occurred in the 1950s. A portion from Veterans Lane to Madison Street was rebuilt by the State in 1962. The City’s last major project was in 1992-93 with lane overlays from Sandy Beach Road to Veterans Lane. The City also completed a project from Veterans Lane to Madison Street in 1998. N. Main Street was reconstructed in 1999 by the State.

Duane Vandemausse with the City’s consulting engineers had communicated with Mike Rewey of WisDOT in 2001 regarding a potential reconstruction of S. Main Street because of interest in a sidewalk project on the street. Staff was informed that the project could be in 2010. The date kept moving back until we were informed that the project was no longer on the list. In that time period there were a substantial number of retirements and position changes. In 2012, City staff requested a meeting with the current staff to discuss the project.

City staff met with Michelle Ellias and Karen Olson from WisDOT to discuss a potential State Highway “89” project (S. Main Street). The conversation went very well and was very informative. The needs and estimate summary prepared by WisDOT noted that the existing roadway is a connecting highway with cracked and rutted pavement. It has been milled and overlaid on past projects but needs a higher level improvement with the last rebuild occurring prior to 1950. Roadway width varies from 40 feet face to face of curb, to variable widths of around 34 feet where there are rural cross sections on the south side of the project. There is parking on both sides of S. Main Street for the full length of the project.

The proposed Improvement and nature of work include replacing pavement, curb and gutter, and storm sewer. There will be an evaluation of intersections for signals or roundabouts, and lane designations. The project will add pedestrian and bicycle accommodations per Trans 75 (Complete Streets) requirements, where feasible.

The expected construction start date is the spring of 2020.  If funding becomes available this project could be constructed sooner, but several years would still be needed for design, permitting, and right-of-way acquisition (if needed). 

There are features of the project work that would be non-participating work which will be undertaken independently by the municipality. These include construction of pavement utilized for parking, utility improvements and overruns of capped aesthetic funding (if the city decides to use CSS funds).  The utility improvements (sanitary sewer and water main) could be constructed concurrently with the DOT project in order to eliminate the need for temporary roadway restoration.  The utilities are currently old and undersized and need to be replaced to accommodate the ultimate service needs of the City. 

ISSUE

This agreement is the preliminary document that gets a six year process started. Within that time period the design and economic conditions will change and this agreement will have to flex with those changes. The estimated City’s expenses are $2.5 million and include the utilities. This again is an estimate and subject to change as the State and City work through the final design of the project. Funding for the general fund portion of the project will be through general obligation bonds. City staff has structured our debt since 2001 to include this project. The major issue is that the project was anticipated to be in the 2010 to 2015 timeline and the debt is pushing into other major projects (Mulberry, Madison).

Staff has been working with the Council on meeting with our legislators to encourage additional funding to move the date of the project ahead. The March 5^th meeting will have a proposed resolution to cover some of these issues. The earliest the project could be completed if additional State funds where approved appears to be 2018.

Staff has already begun to evaluate the street after this year’s extensive freeze/thaw period to determine if we’ll recommend some maintenance improvement in 2014.

RECOMMENDATION

The street is well past the expected life cycle for the construction type and needs extensive improvements. I believe that the City must approve the agreement and start planning around this project.