LITTLE ROCK -- The Arkansas State Highway Commission opened bids Wednesday on a project to widen 17.6 miles of Highway 70 east to five lanes from Interstate 30 in Saline County to Hot Springs.
The low bid -- $78.5 million -- was submitted by McGeorge Contracting Co. Inc. of Pine Bluff.
"It's wonderful that we're spending money to improve highways in central Arkansas," said Commissioner Tom Schueck, of Little Rock. "It will make them much more efficient and safer, especially on Highway 70 from Interstate 30. It's been very expensive as far as deaths are concerned."
The Highway 70 project is actually two projects that the department consolidated to save time and money. The consolidation was announced in January after at least 15 people died in traffic crashes in 2015 on that stretch of highway, the main route between the Little Rock area and Hot Springs.
It is expected to take more than a year and a half to complete, according to bid documents.
The project is one of the reasons motorists will see a marked increase in road construction on state highways in central Arkansas over the next few years -- $244 million worth, to be precise.
That sum was the collective amount of low bids opened Wednesday on five significant projects, including Highway 70, that the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department is ready to undertake in the region, assuming that the bids pass an agency review.
The single-most expensive project is one to rebuild and widen to six lanes 4.6 miles of Highway 67/167 from Vandenberg Boulevard in Jacksonville to Highway 5 in Cabot. The low bid for the job was $79.3 million, submitted by Weaver-Bailey Contractors Inc. of El Paso in White County.
The other central Arkansas projects included replacing pavement on a 3.1-mile section of Interstate 440 from the Arkansas River to Interstate 40 in North Little Rock for $38.4 million; building a new interchange on U.S. 67/167 at Arkansas 38 north of Cabot in Lonoke County for $25.5 million; and adding a ramp from Cantrell Road west to Interstate 430 north at the I-430/Cantrell interchange in Little Rock for $22.9 million.
The U.S. 67/167 project between Jacksonville and Cabot, though much shorter than the Highway 70 project, came in almost $1 million more expensive than the latter, which didn't surprise state highway officials.
The project "is being designed to freeway standards, which is a fully controlled access facility," said Danny Straessle, a department spokesman. "The other will be a five-lane facility -- two lanes in each direction with a continuous center left-hand turn lane."
Another factor in the expense of the U.S. 67/167 project is that not only will another lane be added, but the two existing lanes will be rebuilt, he said.
Once construction begins, the project is expected to take less than one year to complete.
Also, work will continue to widen and rebuild a nearby section of U.S. 67/167 from Redmond Road to Main Street in Jacksonville.
Work began on that $41.9 million project in August 2014 and isn't expected to end until mid-2018, Straessle said. But he said that is a complex project that includes rebuilding and widening two overpasses, while also accommodating through traffic.
The project to rebuild and widen the section of highway between Main and Vandenberg has been delayed because of utility relocation challenges, he said. State highway officials decided to forge ahead with the Vandenberg/ Arkansas 5 section instead of waiting for construction to begin on the Main/Vandenberg project.
The new interchange on U.S. 67/167 north of Cabot is a partnership between the department and the city, Straessle said. The city has contributed nearly $10.2 million for the project, which includes design, utility relocation and construction, he said. It is expected to take about 1½ years to complete, according to bid documents.
Schueck is hoping that the third time is the charm for the project to build a ramp from westbound Cantrell Road, also called Arkansas 10, to I-430 north.
Twice previously, bids for the work were rejected after they came in higher than department estimates for the project. It is unclear what the estimate for the project now is.
The low bid of $22.9 million opened Wednesday is slightly higher than the $22.3 million bid submitted the second time the project received bids in October 2015. The same contractor, Kiewit Infrastructure South of Fort Worth, submitted both bids. But on Wednesday the contractor said it could do the work in 250 days, less than the 310 days it estimated in its October 2015 bid.
The department redesigned the ramp to reduce costs and reduce the amount of blasting that the first design would have required for excavating the side of a steep hill in the northeast quadrant of the interchange. The design involves a flyover that will take traffic over the interstate and allow the traffic to merge from the outside northbound lane.
Both proposals would eliminate the left-hand turn against eastbound traffic that westbound traffic now allows to access I-430 north.
"Hopefully, the Highway 10 ramp can go," Schueck said. "That's the beginning for our east/west thoroughfare to be less congested."
"I have great hope that this is the beginning" of an effort to "relieve the congestion on Highway 10, because it's bad," Schueck said.
The project is expected to take less than a year to complete.
The department opened bids on three other projects worth a little more than $17 million.
They include resurfacing a bridge on I-40 over Bayou Deview just west of Brinkley for $9 million; replacing three bridges on U.S. 63 in Sharp County for $6.4 million; and building a new multipurpose facility in West Memphis for the Arkansas Highway Police, an division of the Highway Department, for $1.5 million.
The bids won't be final or contracts awarded until agency staff members review the bids against agency estimates for the projects and the projects' specifications. The reviews likely will be completed by early next week.
Local on 12/09/2016