City Can Apply for Exceptions on 51 Project, DOT Says
By Brandi Makuski
“I’ll be honest, I was on (City) Council at that time and with way you’re explaining it today, somewhere along the line we were misled.” -Randy Stroik
After several months of confusion over the rules governing a planned reconstruction of the Business 51 corridor, officials from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation were on hand this week to answer some long- held questions posed by the City Council.
As news of the project has spread in local media and various public informational meetings, Council Members say they’ve been faced with some hard questions from constituents, which in turn were relayed to DOT engineers Robin Stafford and Brian Gaber.
“Have you driven a stretch of the road?” Asked Alderman Mike Wiza. “In some areas it’s extremely narrow. What options are there when we have a situation like with the underpass (at the Patch Street intersection), where it’s not even our decision to widen it, and for areas which could see a high number of businesses and other buildings being affected? What hardship options are there?”
Gaber said while the city still has to follow state and federal requirements, which include maintaining certain roadway widths and installing wider pedestrian walks and/or bicycle lanes, it could apply for an exemption to those rules. Gaber didn’t have with him the list of circumstances which allow for the exceptions, which he called “substantial”, but said he would forward the information to City Clerk John Moe.
“But some of those exceptions include a constrained environment; another is disproportionate cost,” Gaber said. An exception could be granted, he said, if 20 percent or more of the total project cost was needed for implementing bike lanes.
Alderman Randy Stroik said the city should also look at the possibility of diverting part of any new bike lane around the more narrow areas of Business 51- routing bicyclists instead along parallel streets with additional space- in order to conform with the federal requirement, which Gaber agreed could be a possibility.
“But there’s engineering and vetting that needs to be done to determine if you guys meet that rule,” Gaber added.
Stafford said the road was made part of the federal highway system in the 1990’s with the creation of the National Federal Highway Administration, which means in part all future construction must meet federal guidelines regardless of roadway ownership. He also said even if the city opts to turn down $2.7 million in earmarked funding from the DOT, those requirements- or a designated exception to them- must be met.
Alderman Wiza suggested the city look into the requirements needed to be considered part of the federal highway system, and whether Business 51 could meet a threshold for being removed.
“With the current plan being down to two lanes and a turn lane, I see people taking the path of least resistance, which is somewhere else, which for example would be Michigan Avenue,” Wiza said. “So if we no longer met those requirements, if we’d be taken off that federal highway system, then we wouldn’t have to comply with all these bike lanes and pedestrian crossings.”
City leaders also questioned the 2005 jurisdictional transfer agreement with the DOT, for which Stevens Point was paid just over $6 million to take ownership and maintenance of the road from the state. Some Council Members also worried about what rights the city actually has over the roadway.
Alderman Randy Stroik, who was serving on the Council during the jurisdictional transfer negotiations, said he was under impression that transfer meant the city had the authority over the roadway’s future construction.
“I’ll be honest; I was on Council at that time and with how you’re explaining it today, somewhere along the line we were misled,” Stroik said. “That information was much different how it was relayed, because it still has strings attached to it. I think the assumption back then was we made it a local street and you paid us off, so to speak, that we would now have complete control over how we use it, how we build it, what we do with it. Clearly was never the intention. It was always going to have stipulation with major reconstructs for that roadway.”
Gaber said the federal law governing roadway requirements had been implemented before the Council agreed to the jurisdictional transfer, but accommodations for bicycles and pedestrians weren’t required until certain regulations were implemented at the federal level in 2009 and 2011.
“To be able to reconstruct the road as is governed by CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Chapter 1, Part 625.30, which says, ‘this regulation establishes federal standards for work on roadways regardless of funding source’,” Gaber said. “So federal law indicated regardless of the type of funding, those standards have to be followed. At the time of the transfer, the definition and consideration for bike-ped was different than it is now, but the law is the same,” he added.
“What if we decided to do nothing,” asked Alderman Tony Patton. “If we just put a two- inch cap of blacktop over the whole thing to fix the concrete. Can we do that?”
Gaber said the threshold for any exception to federal law would require repairs with a minimum of a 15- year life expectancy.
“So if you put a two- inch blacktop cap on this particular road, I’m guessing that’s not going to get you 15 years- it would probably get you six years,” Gaber said.
Disclosure of the possible exceptions for the roadway rebuild flies in the face of previous statements from both Mayor Andrew Halverson and Bruce Gerland from AECOM, the engineering firm hired to design the new road. Both have previously stated inclusion of the bike lanes as well as improved intersection safety as primary reasons for the extensive roadway work, which includes widening the road in some places and reducing it to a two- lane in other spots. Halverson has also cited the need for replacing aging underground utilities as an additional reason for tearing up the road.
“As the requirements have changed, that wasn’t going to change what the project ultimately was going to have to become,” Halverson said. “I think initially we thought it (the project in its entirety) was a to ‘maintain eligibility’ for state and federal dollars. Well, as we continue to massage that question, it’s mutually exclusive whether we take those dollars or not.”