Walsh wins contract to build seven-mile St. Paul segment

The Metropolitan Council awarded the first heavy construction contract for the Central Corridor light rail transit Project to Walsh Construction to build the seven-mile St. Paul segment of the line. Walsh's $205.1-million award includes betterment work valued at $10.4 million that was requested by, and will be paid for, by cooperating agencies and utilities.  

"This is another exciting
milestone for the Central Corridor project," said Peter Bell, chair of the Met
Council. "While we haven’t had any ceremony or ribbon-cutting, the fact is we
are starting construction this summer on the largest and most important transit
improvement project in state history."

Construction is expected
to begin in August east of the state Capitol on Robert and 12th streets north
of Interstate 94, with utility relocation work there expected to start soon
after July Fourth. Most of the heavy construction on University Avenue will
occur in 2011 between Emerald Street and Hamline Avenue and in 2012 between
Hamline and Robert. The work in downtown St. Paul will occur in 2011-2012.

Bids for the heavy
construction work on the line’s western three miles are to be opened July 27.
The Met Council is scheduled to award that contract Aug. 25. Prep work will
begin in September to retrofit the Washington Avenue Bridge to accommodate LRT
trains by strengthening the bridge piers. This work will not affect vehicular
or pedestrian/bicycle traffic on the bridge during the fall 2010 semester. In
December, crews will begin the process to tie in the Central Corridor line from
the Hiawatha Line just west of the Cedar-Riverside Station to west of the
future West Bank Station. The bulk of the construction on the Minneapolis
segment will start in spring 2011.

The project is able to
begin heavy construction due to advance funding commitments from its partners
and federal approval of this arrangement. Under this same arrangement, the
project began improvements in May on streets around the East Bank campus of the
University of Minnesota and utility relocation work last year on Fourth Street
in St. Paul. The FTA has agreed to reimburse the project partners for the
federal share of this advanced work once it awards a Full Funding Grant
Agreement this fall.

Work on the seven-mile
St. Paul segment includes:

                 
Relocating utilities
necessary for the LRT trackway

                 
Constructing nearly
seven miles of embedded double track

                 
Fully reconstructing
streets where track is being installed

                 
Building 14 stations
from Westgate Station to Union Depot Station

                 
Modifying two bridges
(on University over Highway 280 and on Cedar Street over Interstates 94 and
35E)

                 
Installing concrete
paving for signalized intersections

                 
Building an infiltration
trench for collecting storm water

                 
Constructing at-grade
pedestrian crossings

                 
Demolishing the vacant
Bremer Bank building and reconnecting the skyway

The Central Corridor
Project Office has taken steps to eliminate or reduce construction-related impediments
to businesses and property owners. These steps include:

• Limiting construction
of each segment on University Avenue to two-thirds at a time while maintaining
a lane of traffic on the other third.

• Requiring contractors
to restore the street in front of any business within 150 days and the sidewalk
within 15 days.

• Implementing a
contractor incentive program to encourage responsiveness, create a partnership
between contractors and the community and promote cooperation. Evaluation
criteria will include conformance with notification requirements, timely
response to public concerns, maintenance of vehicle access and accessible
pedestrian routes and cleanliness of construction sites.

• Issuing weekly emailed
construction updates to provide the public with advance notice of routes that
are closed and their alternates. The sign-up form to receive the emails is at: http://tinyurl.com/29kjwm8

• Holding public
construction meetings for businesses and the public to get updates and a look
ahead from project staff and utilities.

• Setting up a
construction hotline and posting the number, 651-602-1404, in prominent
locations throughout a work zone.

• Assigning multilingual
outreach coordinators from the community to be liaisons between the project and
the public from the engineering phase through construction.

• Distributing a brochure
to businesses on the corridor and nearby residents about how the project will
communicate construction information and how it can be reached with questions
and concerns.

The Central Corridor Light
Rail Transit Project will link downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis along
Washington and University avenues via the state Capitol and University of
Minnesota.