2014 Main Street project planning starts

Lovell Main Street business owners and manager packed the back room of the Brandin’ Iron Restaurant Monday to discuss with project leaders next summer’s planned Main Street rehabilitation and water and sewer project.[caption id="attachment_6515" align="alignright" width="390"] DOWL HKM engineer Andrew Mattie makes a point while WyDOT’s Cody Beers and Keith Compson and DOWL HKM’s Sarah Mainwaring look on during Monday’s Main Street meeting at the Brandin’ Iron.
David Peck photo[/caption]Wyoming Dept. of Transportation resident engineer Ben Steed started the discussion by explaining that WyDOT and the Town of Lovell are coordinating the two projects and working together on planning and design.Steed said WyDOT will be repairing concrete slabs and performing ADA work on corners as well as repair broken sidewalks from Shoshone Avenue west. Meanwhile, the Town of Lovell will undertake the final phase of the multi-year water and sewer infrastructure project. The sewer main directly under the median strip will be replaced, along with the water main, which lies about 10 feet to the north of the median.“We’ll do both jobs together,” Steed said. “We’re in the design phase now. It will be a huge impact. There will be the water and sewer lines and the services. We want to get input from you guys about traffic, working times and things like that. There are all kinds of different things that we can do.”DOWL HKM engineer Andrew Mattie, speaking for the Town of Lovell project, said the water and sewer project will involve 6,000 linear feet of pipe from Great Western Avenue to Quebec.“It’s a big project, and it’s going to be disruptive,” Mattie said. “We’ll have about a 20-foot hole down the middle of Main Street. Because of the sewer line we will start at the east end of Main and go toward Great Western.“We’ll start very early, in April, and we’ll finish in about October.”Mattie said rather than leaving great stretches of pavement torn up and unfinished for long stretches of time, the goal of the Main Street project is to do two blocks at a time and finish the blocks, then move west to the next two blocks. It will take three to five weeks per block, he said. Laterals must be run to the businesses, branching out from the main lines.“It’s necessary to coordinate with the businesses and find out what’s a viable plan,” he said. “We’ll try to be as least disruptive as we can.”Mattie said sewer laterals will be run to the edge of the right-of-way, and the business owner is responsible for any work beyond that. He said a cleanout will be put on each line for future maintenance. Water lines will also be run to the curb box.Back door accessLovell Inc. Director Sue Taylor urged businesses to examine their buildings for possible back-door access during the construction. Though the sidewalks on Main will be in use, there will be no parking on each two-block section of Main during the three- to five-week time of intense construction.Taylor said Lovell Inc. and the Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce will work together to communicate with business owners during construction. She noted that WyDOT can make orange signs available to direct shoppers to back-door accesses.“I like doing two blocks at a time,” Taylor noted. “It seems like a better plan than what happened in the residential areas. It should be less disruptive, but there’s no way to avoid it.“When it’s done I believe we will have the best (water and sewer) system in the state, maybe in many states. We’re very happy to help, and the Chamber is very happy to help.”Mattie said it is too early to know exactly when certain blocks will be affected, but come next year there will be maps available and updates provided via the Lovell Chronicle and public meetings on a weekly basis.District Construction Engineer Keith Compton agreed and said certain milestones can even be written into the contract.Detours?In response to a question, Mattie said semi-truck traffic could be detoured around Main via Highway 32 and Lane 12 or Lane 13, but he noted that Highway 32 is also slated for an overlay project next summer.The difficulty is in determining who would have to detour, Compton said, noting, “We don’t want to deter tourist traffic, and I’m also concerned about detouring through residential areas.”Compton wondered if Main Street could be made a one-way street temporarily, with opposite flow traffic diverted one block over. That would allow more turning radius for large vehicles and less congestion.WyDOT Public Involvement Specialist Cody Beers said he would like to avoid using the word detour at all and would like to avoid a bypass, which could harm the business district.“We want to be as creative as we can,” Beers said, “so people will come to Lovell to do business. You will see us do that (a bypass) very seldom. We like to go through the middle of a project, even it it’s a problem for the contractor.”Lovell Fire Dept. Capt. Bob Mangus asked about fire hydrants, and Mattie and DOWL HKM design engineer Sarah Mainwaring noted that there are only two hydrants that feed off the water main on Main Street. The rest come off side streets.“You have pretty good redundancy,” Mattie said.Hen House owner John Lafko asked if construction crews could go to a nearly 24-hour construction schedule just in the central business district to expedite the progress during that time, and Mattie said that could be considered, although cost would be a factor.Compton said WyDOT considered removing all of the concrete and replacing it with asphalt, but that idea was rejected. He said defining the time frame in a certain way could lead to the contractor needing to use high early strength concrete, which would shorten the time of concrete curing.Another idea is for the construction crew to work Saturdays if the town would agree to it, Taylor noted.Chamber of Commerce President Jody Lynne Bassett, who works for Western Sugar, noted that having the project reach the west end of Main Street in September/October could be a big problem for the sugar beet harvest. Mattie said he believes there is a “back gate” that beet trucks can use to access the factory.Officials also stated that there will be a complete project shutdown during Mustang Days so as to minimize the impact on the celebration.Picturing the projectAsked to paint a picture of how Main Street will look, Mattie said the sidewalks will have metal walkways to bridge the laterals when they are cut in, so sidewalk access will be maintained at all times.He said the spoil pile will take up one whole side of the street and will be about 20 feet tall. On the other side of the street dump trucks will be moving up and down the street along with cement trucks track hoes and other heavy equipment. Jersey barriers will be used to protect the construction area.“It will be a tight footprint, and the contractor will be very organized,” Mattie said.Jim Szlemko asked if WyDOT could provide crossing guards on Main Street once school starts in the fall of 2014.Asked about the ramifications on tourism, Beers said travelers are used to road construction during the summer and if planners “do it right” and don’t scare off visitors with a detour or bypass, “you should have the same people coming in,” he said.“There are projects all over the state of Wyoming in the summer,” Beers said. “Construction is a way of life.”Beers said he likes how organized the community already is looking ahead to the project, and he said businesses can do things to minimize the impact by sprucing up their back doors and doing promotions to encourage business.“We’ll try to keep as much traffic as we can on the highway,” he said.Anyone with questions is invited to call Mattie at 406-656-6399 or Beers at 307-431-1803.by David Peck