BigWillJ
10-04-2005, 01:09 PM
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051004/NEWS01/510040350/1006
Dang... I thought the bridge was a done deal and already started... guess I haven't been keeping up with the rhetoric.
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Indian River bridge project delayed
Hurricanes drive cost up 60 percent
By KRISTIN HARTY and PATRICK JACKSON
The News Journal10/04/2005Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck shores far from Delaware's coast, but their effects are contributing to the delay of the biggest bridge project ever dreamed up in this state.
Transportation officials abandoned the bid process Monday for the proposed 1,000-foot bridge to span the Indian River Inlet after they received just one bid. Preliminary talks indicated the bid was considerably higher than the $125 million project estimate.
"We're back to the drawing board," said Department of Transportation Secretary Nathan Hayward. The state had expected to receive up to seven bids for the bridge, but competition is stiff for construction projects, in part because of the hurricanes.
"When someone was talking with us about going tens of millions of dollars over the price, we decided to cancel the bid opening," Hayward said after Monday's session of the Joint Bond Bill Committee in Dover.
The company that submitted the lone bid, Evansville, Ill.-based Traylor Bros., indicated it would come in at about $200 million -- 60 percent higher than the state's estimate.
Despite the setback -- and continuing financial troubles at DelDOT -- state officials insist the bridge will get built. Though it's not unsafe, the current bridge's legs are literally sinking into the inlet. The ground supporting the bridge piers is eroding because of strong tidal currents, Hayward said. Two holes near the piers are about 100 feet deep, and getting deeper.
Barring major storms that accelerate the process, engineers say the current bridge has a remaining life span of five to seven years.
'The perfect storm'
"Everybody's hoping against hope we aren't going to have a problem," said Sen. George H. Bunting Jr., D-Bethany Beach, who has advocated a new bridge for about a decade. Though disappointed by the delay, he supports Hayward's decision to abandon the bidding process.
"Unfortunately, it's the only prudent thing they could do," Bunting said Monday night. "We're in the perfect storm right now with the price of steel and concrete so high. You've got all these things happening at the same time. The huge contractors can cherry-pick what they want to do."
DelDOT already has delayed a number of major projects because of a $287 million funding shortfall. Bunting, other state legislators and Hayward said the Indian River Inlet Bridge remains a top priority.
The bridge provides a critical link between Dewey Beach and Bethany Beach in Sussex County. Without it, the 12-mile trip would be three times as long over an inland route.
In 2004, the bridge carried an average of 13,000 vehicles daily, but predictions for this year indicate that about 20,000 vehicles will cross it every day.
"What are we going to do?" Bunting said. "I don't know. Go back and punt, I guess."
Looking at other options
Hayward said Monday DelDOT's first option is to break up the project's bids into five parts to generate more competition. Another option: Redesigning the bridge itself, possibly into a cable-stay span, similar to Del. 1's Bill Roth Bridge over the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.
Some lawmakers, such as Georgetown Republican Rep. Joseph W. Booth, said they hope Hayward takes a look at paring back some of the frills on the project and comes back with a cheaper bridge.
"We need a bridge that will get the job done," Booth said. "We don't need the Ninth Wonder of the World."
Legislators look at cost
Had Hayward not been ready to skip awarding the contract, the committee was ready to take the decision out of his hands, said Rep. Roger P. Roy, R-Limestone Hills, and William A. Oberle Jr., R-Beechers Lot.
An amendment to the Bond Bill had been drafted that would have frozen the project if bids had come in substantially over estimates and DelDOT would have been ordered to re-engineer a stripped-down version of the span.
"He made a good call," said Roy, the committee's co-chairman. "I don't know how they're going to solve things. But he was right in not opening the bids, if he knew they were going to be way over."
Rep. Peter C. Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, said DelDOT can't take its eye off the problem. DelDOT indicated Monday that its goal is to complete a new bridge by 2010.
"I think we need to get it done," said Schwartzkopf, a former state police troop commander in coastal Sussex County. "Let me tell you, when that bridge is closed, it makes it really hard to get around the county, and you really can't have that."