First in an occasional series.
Sections of sewer pipe, each about the size of a Smart car, lie end to end on the now-closed portion of the Inner Loop — snaking under the East Avenue-Broad Street exit sign before disappearing around a curve.
The pipe started going in last week, says Paul Winterkorn, senior construction administrator with Stantec Consulting Services. Stantec is overseeing the fill-in of the eastern section of the loop — a $21-million project that should create about six acres of developable land between Monroe Avenue and Charlotte Street.
The Inner Loop is a sunken channel — about 25 feet below street level — that surrounds downtown Rochester. It has over the course of its 60-year lifespan slowly strangled the city, officials say, by isolating downtown and carving up neighborhoods.
Winterkorn spends part of his day working out of a temporary office on East Avenue, but the bulk of his time is spent on the job site. It’s been quiet, he says, but now that the pipe is going in, you’ll really start to see some action.
“After we get the sewer in, it’ll be pretty much a constant operation,” he says.
About 30,000 cubic yards of fill has been trucked in so far from construction sites around the county. For perspective, a large dump truck can carry about 10 cubic yards of soil. The dirt is bulldozed off the top as truckloads come in, Winterkorn says, so more can be added to the pile, which is currently about 40 feet high.
The project will require about 100,000 cubic yards of fill in total, Winterkorn says. The soil will be compacted and tested to ensure its stability; oversized rocks and hunks of concrete get pulverized by a crusher.
“The soil won’t compact around it if it’s too big,” he says. “It’ll leave voids.”
Some of the ground-up material sticks in the square spaces between the crusher’s tank-like treads.
The utility work on the job is ahead of schedule, Winterkorn says. Rochester Gas & Electric is so far ahead that it has pulled people off the site, he says.
The rest of the three-year job is pretty much on target, he says. The completion date is December 2017. At peak times, Winterkorn says, more than two dozen workers from the project’s main contractors will be working on the site.
The job requires careful choreography as well as raw power and heavy machinery. The project must be staged just so, Winterkorn says, to minimize disruption to the life and flow of the city. They have to complete the fill for Broad and Charlotte streets, for example, before they take out the East Avenue bridge, he says. And they have to open Union Street to two-way traffic before they shut down Pitkin Street.
“This type of project doesn’t come around very often, of this kind of magnitude,” Winterkorn says. “And there’s a lot of different elements to it.”
This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2015.
The city is spending $21,000,000 to create six acres of real estate. Now, please tell me who plans on paying $3,500,000 for an acre of land?? Exactly who? Most of the time the city will sell a piece of property for a $1. Which favored contractor will get the deal of his life time. At least the Marina Project has a price tag of $176,000 for a parcel of land there. In that case though, since the land remains unstable and susceptible to liquefaction it is like getting a million dollars. Liquefaction is a process by which water-saturated sediment temporarily loses strength and acts as a fluid,. This effect can be caused by shaking. Oh, forgot the cost of preparation of the Marina basin to get that $176,000. It is somewhere over $20,000,000. The city will soon give another contractor a great deal. One other thing, the Inner Loop Project was originally scheduled to get the soil being removed for the Marina Project as fill. Well, currently every truck load of that soil is being trucked 36 miles out to the Mill Seat Landfill because it is contaminated. Per the contract with Crane Hogan, the site construction company, the city will pay that bill too, totally separate from the actual marina construction cost. Our city hard at work spending your money.
I think it’s called investment. And remember, filling in the loop costs less than repairing or replacing the deteriorated bridges.
Boy it gets tough on this site when point out the truth.
Think taxes, Bob.
You’re just projecting your dislike for the Charlotte project unto another unrelated project. Making things nicer costs money.
Perhaps Bill you are being a little harsh but lets not pretend that there will be any taxes on this land. Right now there are 6 acres of land in the old mid town site which no one wants. There seems to be little demand for this property and it seems unlikely there will be demand when more space enters the market. Further in order to get Windstream to build there we had to give them $10.7 million in cash and assistance. Finally very few of the big projects pay any real taxes at all and with our present leadership there seems to be no reason to believe any new development will pay taxes. Look at the Windstream building, this building was built for $18.9 million yet it pays only $21,280.60. The same is true for almost all these projects. The important thing Bill has pointed out is that the land here should not be seen as a benefit as we are creating it for a mere $3.5 million and acre. The value of this project is in the need to fix deteriorating infrastructure and, I feel, it is unfortunate that filling something in with dirt is the best we could afford.
Oh god. Do we have to keep listening to the biggest “expert” in Rochester Bill Brown tell us why we are all idiots and he’s the only one that knows what is going on. Hey Bill, how come the North Shore project in Canandaigua which is identical to Charlotte with a brownfield site on a former dump with fill-in that was originally a swamp and deep bed rock as well doesn’t seem to have you the “expert” screaming they can’t build there? I’m sorry, but I think you’re a scam artist who’s really just trying to promote himself and his business
Oh goodie. Along with the savy business person Bill Brown just trying to promote his business, we also have our favorite anti-urban politician Alex White patting himself on the back and also preaching world doom to us.
Jasonw1: Here are some of the significant differences between North Shore and Port of Rochester Marina Project:
1. North Shore not planned to be built on the side of a gorge wall
2. North Shore Buildings around 24% of total site, Marina Project near 80%
3. North Shore Buildings built above ground without below ground parking,
Marina Project has a planned parking lot (53 spaces below ground), which is below the water table and this water is corrosive.
4. North Shore has more parking, not less, as with the Marina Project
5. North Shore Project biggest two concerns, removing contaminated soil from landfill – only where buildings are sited (much smaller area than the Marina Project) & protection from a 100 year flood – again everything is above ground.
6. North Shore Bedrock does not seem to be a big issue, but I have not found the boring test reports yet. Will get back to you on that.
7. North Shore Project does not have a liquefaction risk, Marina Project has a big risk
How many more reasons do you need to realize you simply don’t know what you are talking about, even though you are not an idiot.
Lastly Jason, my business is selling software systems to waste companies, exactly how much business will I receive nationally (my market place) from presenting research on a Marina Project at the Port of Rochester to the general public.
It’s great that this project is ahead of schedule. Coming from Boston, the land of the Big Dig, I’m amazed at the idea of any civil engineering project coming in ahead of schedule or under budget. Kudos.
And @Bill Brown, the right way to think about this is that $21 million of investment not only creates 6 acres of usable land, but also eliminates a noose around downtown that was harming downtown’s economy. So rather than thinking that $21 million / 6 acres means $3.5 million per acre, the benefit of that $21 million is going to be spread out to all of downtown and the East End. Plus, as Tom said, had we not filled in the Inner Loop, we would have had to pay more money to fix the bridges anyways.
I think both Bill and Alex have missed the forest for the trees with this project. $17 million of this project is coming from a Federal Tiger Grant which originated from a one time allocation of funds from the 2009 Recovery Act, so it was money that was going to spent regardless of whether or not the Inner Loop was filled in. This leaves the City with just a $3 million price tag for the project. Not bad when you consider the fact that the NYSDOT was calling for $25 million in repairs and maintenance just for the deficient bridges. In fact if you read the project benefit cost analysis the City stands to save close to $35 million in maintenance alone through this project. By Bill’s math the City could actually pay developers over $5 million an acre, charge no taxes on the property, and still come out ahead , due to maintenance savings alone.
Nick – Exactly where are the real dollars coming from (the recovery act). Is the President taking it from his account? Oh no, it must be the Senate members, nah, they wouldn’t do that. Maybe the House Members??, Not them either. Oh, it is the taxpayer? Not even the taxpayer. It is China or other investor outside the country. The reason they did not use taxpayer money is that it was used up on an endless list of other uncontrolled spending projects. Oh, and our kids will be paying for filling that hole in the ground by repaying China and whoever else has loaned this country money. Also Nick since the government has a loan to fill the hole (both city and feds), if they actually paid it off in 10 years there would be an additional 4.3 million in interest at 4%. Now if the city were to simply fill the hole and leave only the cross streets like East Ave and Main street, that would make more sense in that there would be more acres to attempt to sell and the cost of the project would be much smaller because they did not have to build the fancy replacement road. If the inner loop was not really needed than why do we need the fancy replacement.
Adrain, I will concede that the bridges did need repair, but to conclude that this project finishes on time and at only 21 million is much more of a wish than a guaranteed result. Like the big dig in Boston, the Rochester city government will figure out a way to make it cost more. The noose around downtown is not the inner loop and its bridges, it is the real cost to have an office downtown and the lack of people living in the city proper. The reason a New York City, or Washington DC or any big city works is the need to live close to your job and there are plenty of people doing that in those cities. The very nice thing about the Rochester metro area is that you don’t need nor desire to live in the middle of the city and you don’t have to work in the city (for most people). One Democrat Administration after another keeps promising to bring Rochester back alive, but all have failed and continue to fail with each new project. Rochester city proper is a place to visit by most Monroe County residents either to work or to attend an event. As soon as the work day is over or the event ends the population in the city returns to close to zero. The likelihood of things changing is about the same as we start using type writers again.
Bill- The real money is coming from the sale of government bonds on the open market and then paid back through regular debt and finance service to the capital projects funds. Almost all capital projects are financed in this way. Expecting the government to have upfront cash in a general fund to cover the often enormous costs of public works construction is all but unheard of in this country, and I say that going all the way back to the construction of the Erie Canal. The Inner Loop Project is no different in this regard. If you had read the cost benefit analysis for this project completed by H,R,&A (an impartial third party in regards to the project) you would see that they already took into consideration interest costs. The benefit in maintenance was still close to $20 million dollars when projecting a 30 year finance period at 7% interest on total project dollars. This means that it is still a net gain even if no property is developed. As too why the new street is needed, you still need to have a connector street in this location to allow a steady flow of traffic throughout the city. You just don’t need the 12 lanes of sunken expressway and service roads we have now. And the single biggest cost of the project is for the placement of fill ($2.4 million for 120,000 cu yd at $20/ cu yd)so there wouldn’t be a huge savings realized by not placing new road.
Dear Mr. Brown,
I and my 209,999 fellow city residents are surprised to hear that “as soon as the work day is over or the event ends the population in the city returns to close to zero.”
Sincerely,
Tom Morrisey
Former suburbanite, city resident since Jan. 2013
The city’s greatest asset, as for as I was concerned, was the loop. Now, without the complete loop, the city’s greatest downfall, in my opinion, is the driving frustration. Being stuck at multiple traffic lights wastes gas and put more air pollution in the city.
Hey Tom Morssiey, I am a city resident also, but am not a center city resident. It is the center city which becomes basically empty. Yes I recognize there are some apartment buildings in center city, but few stores or restaurants remain open after the work day. Where do you reside?
@bill many residents of the East End or St Paul/Andrews wish that downtown was emptier after business hours…
Tom Janowski-
As far as traffic is concerned allow me to quote from the NYSDOT engineering assessment report on the project.
“The expressway has a number of non-standard features, notably blind slip ramps and inadequate merge/weave sections, which contribute to unsafe conditions and a generally unpleasant experience. The presence of one-way frontage roads flanking the expressway makes it necessary to have two traffic signals at each crossing arterial (six signals in total). Two of these arterials, East Avenue and Monroe Avenue, carry more traffic than the expressway itself. Thus, the underutilized expressway causes excess delay on more heavily-traveled surface arterials. Removal of the expressway and frontage roads and their replacement with an at-grade boulevard will improve traffic operations on these key Center City arterials while adding only minor delay for former users of this section of expressway.”
“With respect to travel performance, the project can achieve the desired objective while adding only 2.2 seconds of delay per vehicle during the evening peak travel period by the year 2035. The Level of Service at the remaining three (3) reconfigured traffic signal control intersections will operate at LOS C with no
traffic movements below LOS D. Energy consumption, as well as vehicle emissions, will be reduced (see Sustainability Section). These changes will also reduce the number and severity of traffic accidents. Thus, overall travel safety will be improved (see Safety Section). The relatively low traffic volumes on the expressway can be easily, and more efficiently, handled on a multi-lane surface boulevard. The removal of the grade-separated highway will facilitate increased
bicycle/pedestrian mode share and will enhance accessibility and mobility options for the disabled. The number of traffic signals along the corridor will be halved from six to three, reducing excess delay for motorists and patrons of the three heavily-used bus routes that traverse this section of the Loop. Access
management via medians and/or shared driveways will ensure a high-quality level of service on the new boulevard.”
Any road is as safe or as unsafe as a driver makes it. Been using the loop for 20+ years and have never seen or felt anything I would consider unsafe.
Nick, I find the reference to 2035 a bit interesting. This project will be completed long before that. Also how many roads in the world have less traffic in the distant future rather than more traffic? Also, it was interesting that non-mathematicians calculated that the average additional time delay was ONLY 2.2 seconds. This change is all about a well hidden program called Agenda 21. The concept basically is to control the population spread to the suburbs and making everyone live in cities and use walking or bicycles as the primary means of travel. Check on my reference and see where a controlling government wants to take us. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Bill-
2035 was used as a date because NYSDOT always uses a 20 year cost/benefit analysis when considering capital upgrades. The 2.2 second delay was derived from the use of mathematical models, in the U.S. it is most common to apply the Highway Capacity Manual models published by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences and the FHWA, and has been in use since first published in 1950. Please see link below. There’s no big government conspiracy in these numbers to get us to all ride bikes and eat more kale, just math.
http://hcm2010.org/system/datas/86/original/Chapter%2032%20-%20Stop-Controlled%20Intersections%20Supplemental.pdf
That there is consistently a naysayer (or two or a thousand) whenever, and I mean WHENEVER! Rochester tries to improve anything is exactly what is wrong with this stagnant, frustrating city.