UPDATE: City of Sioux Falls Engineering Department off 100%+ on cost overrun projections for 6th Street bridge

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UPDATE: Here is a copy of the final bid tabulation: 6th Street Bridge

I understand inflation and cost overruns, but I am not certain how you can be off by 100%?

Recently the city had a change order (cost overrun) on the wastewater project for over $500,000 with NO explanation. With the 6th street bridge, the council gets a short email from Public Works Director, Mark Cotter (Click on the attachments for Item #27)

Good Afternoon City Council and City Council Staff,
On December 22, 2022, we bid the 6th Street Downtown Project. The major elements of this project include a new bridge over the Big Sioux River, extensive underground public and private utility work, a large bore through quartzite rock under the railroad tracks to allow for the utilities to cross, and the elements for the future quiet zone/whistle reduction crossing. The project came in significantly over the engineer’s estimate at $21.8M. There are a number of drivers that make this project difficult to estimate:
• Limited bidders – This is a very complex project coupled with fact that there is a significant amount of bridge work in the region and several contractors are full or are nearly full for the year,
• Project access is a challenge and primarily must be built from one side, the east side,
• Limited staging area coupled with risk of high river flows with spring rains/runoff,
• Tight labor market and continued high construction cost inflation,

*The original cost estimate put out for bid was $8,867,228 with it expecting to come in at 12,919,000 (as of 12/22/2022) that bid came in at 100%+ overrun of $21,821,916 with an additional add on of $238K for a steel railing (*Bid tabulation from the SF Public Works Engineering Department).

I get it, cost overruns occur, but maybe the city council needs to be asking Mark Cotter how they can be off by over 100% when inflation last year was around 7%. Something isn’t adding up.

Is the City of Sioux Falls violating ordinance when plowing streets?

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It doesn’t fail, when you run a city blog as long as I have, whenever it snows I hear about the removal. I have come to the realization that most people are being nit-picky, but the latest blowback is concerning.

SNOWGATES. By ordinance the city has to use them, unless they decide not to. I know, seems like a pretty big out. During and before the petition drive, Staggers and especially Stehly did extensive research on them, and unless the snow is super wet they work well up to almost 20 inches. The city continues to use a mulligan on them, but they could have been easily used the last two times, which brings us to another problem;

CLEARING INTERSECTIONS. One of the benefits of having snowgates is clearing intersections when the north/south and east/west streets are cleared, instead of creating a massive windrow they can be alleviated immediately.

But one of the glaring problems is this;

Looks like the city is supposed to be clearing snow curb to curb.

I have also heard the city has scaled back on private contractor use. I am not opposed to that, and would rather see city union employees getting the OT instead of a private contractor, but you wonder why this relationship has changed?

Isn’t life so wonderful that the only thing we have to bitch about with local government is how they take the white crap away?

I have often looked at things like public transit and snow removal as basic economic development. When people can safely get to work and make wages that’s a good thing. You kind of wonder how many folks were either terminated or reprimanded during this past storm because they couldn’t make it to work?

Local government is easy. Collect taxes, provide essential services.

Denver, CO sees measurable results from incentivizing E-Bikes

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While many people have told me to get off my high-horse about helping low income folks with an E-Bike leasing program, Denver has found that it has measurable results;

Researchers at Portland State University are tracking 65 programs nationwide that are active or that have been approved to help people get on e-bikes, either through subsidies or loaning a bike. California plans to launch a statewide program next year backed by $10 million.

E-bikes, which have a motor and battery to propel riders, can cost about $2,000, putting them out of reach for many low-income families. Denver’s program has two tiers, with one that offers $400 to any city resident — an amount aimed at sweetening the deal for would-be buyers. For low-income residents, the second tier increases the voucher size to $1,200, a sum city officials say should make the bikes more widely affordable.

Two other elements of the program are designed to encourage buyers to use their bikes for transportation: a bonus of $500 for cargo bikes, which can carry children or a large load, while full-suspension mountain bikes used primarily for recreation aren’t eligible.

And after Denver tried this pilot program, guess what they found out;

A city survey found new e-bike riders were riding, on average, 26.2 miles per week, and that low-income buyers were riding about 32 miles per week. Respondents said they had replaced 3.4 car trips each week with bike rides.

“It’s so much faster,” said Rink, who commutes by e-bike. “It’s much less of a chore. There is an element of joy in riding the e-bike.”

I would agree, my main reason I like riding my E-Bike is because it is enjoyable, but if you look at the results of this successful program it is also equitable. I hope the new transportation board in Sioux Falls looks at this.

Denver voters to decide if city pays for sidewalk maintenance

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This isn’t something new. When councilor Staggers was still alive we had many discussions about doing a local ballot initiative to force the city to trim the trees in the parking strip and maintain city owned sidewalks abutting private property;

They will get to decide whether to shift the responsibility of maintaining sidewalks from individual property owners to the city. The proposal on next week’s ballot would also impose a tax on property owners, to help maintain the city’s current sidewalks and add them in the many parts of town where they’re missing.

The initiative we discussed was similar. If passed, it would be up to the city council and public works to decide on an additional front assessment fee based on the square footage of your sidewalk and boulevard.

The ballot measure would charge property owners based on how much of their land runs along a street, and what type of street it faces. The measure would include discounts for owners in poorer neighborhoods. Proponents say that a typical family living in a single-family house would pay about $9 a month for the improvements. Of course, people with corner lots, or businesses located downtown, could pay more.

Sioux Falls is littered with bad public sidewalks. I think a better approach is to just have the city fix it and we reimburse the costs through our front assessment.

Marshall surveyed 16 cities last year to see how much information they had about their streets and sidewalks. All of the cities kept meticulous records on where potholes appeared, and they reported being able to fill those within days. But most had no comprehensive information about the conditions of their sidewalks. Washington was the only city that provided an average response time for fixing sidewalks, and it was 270 days, Marshall said.

Kind of sounds familiar. While our pedestrian and biking infrastructure crumbles the city is busy filling potholes that have to be refilled multiple times (instead of just building better roads).

“It’s not sidewalks as the target. It’s improving walkability,” Kraft said. “It’s increasing active transportation. Sidewalks and connected sidewalk networks are a means for getting there.”

Exactly.

I also think new retail businesses in Sioux Falls should be required to put a small bike rack in front of their business. If businesses are required to have so many parking spaces they should also be required to provide bicycle parking.

City of Sioux Falls files Water Reclamation Lawsuit, but who knew?

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Last night the Argus Leader put up a story about the lawsuit and how the city is suing for ‘millions of dollars’ in damages and loses. Basically the city contracted with a company to install a system that would suck nasty gas particles from reclamation to power a generator to save electrical costs at the plant.

Sounds like a great idea. But it didn’t work.

Where the story gets bizarre is the timeline.

The whole process started in 2015 and was installed by 2017. The city realized right away that it wasn’t working and since the company has not resolved the issue, they are suing.

Makes sense.

But even if you give the company a year to resolve the problems (2018) why has it taken 4 years to decide to sue? (we still don’t know the outcome of the failed geo-thermal HVAC system at the administration building – probably safe to assume the taxpayers ate that $300K F’up)

I asked a city mole why we are hearing this from the Argus and not the city? Wouldn’t the city at least want to put a press release out about the pending litigation before a surprise story appears in the paper?

This person said they were unsure if many people in leadership even knew about it.

HUH?

I’m still digging around on that statement because if it is true how does the city file a lawsuit seeking millions in damages without knowing they filed it? Did the mayor know? Did the lead city attorney know? Did the council know? Did the public works director know? Did the guy who cleans the mayor’s toilet know? Bueller? Bueller?

Maybe they did and just didn’t bother telling us. Maybe they wanted the Argus to crack this nut?

But this isn’t like Joe Sixpack getting sued over some bushes and piles of shingles in his backyard. This is a long strung out process with millions in taxpayer money wasted. Oh, that’s right, the city is good at those sort of things, at the end of the day we will probably end up paying them a settlement 🙂

But you have to wonder, did a subordinate file the suit (or hire outside counsel to do so) without anyone in leadership knowing? Well folks, that is how cruise control government works, let the minions worry about the lawsuits so it frees up more time to write children’s books.