Transcript. NM FLAP 159(1) Catwalk Access - Prebid Virtual Meeting _2023-07-11.pdf

NM FLAP 159(1) CATWALK ACCESS ROAD

Pre-Bid Virtual Meeting

1000 MST

Attendance:

Justin Henwood- FHWA Sheri Walsh- FHWA Stephanie Navarro- FHWA Lydia Kiehne- external Curtis Rogers- external Julia Dietsch- FHWA Jeff Felling- FHWA Tomasz Kubicz- FHWA Michelle Peulen- external Ryan Olsen FHWA Garret Ross FS Jacob Russell- FHWA Kaylynn Scott- FHWA Brian Stulz- external Sandra Taylor- external Tim Wasselman- FHWA Maribeth Pecotte- external Tammy Eggers- FHWA Toni Pankau- FHWA Alan Stott- external Nathan Allen- FHWA Michael Daigler- FHWA Nathan Mascarenas- FHWA

0:0:43.960 --> 0:0:45.470 Henwood, Justin (FHWA) My name is Justin Henwood.

I am a project manager with the Central Federal Lands Highway Division and handled the design and preparation of plans for the catwalk Access Rd project, which is currently being advertised and this pre bid meeting is just a an opportunity to give interested contractors a little bit of background and knowledge about the project and then let them ask any questions that they might have.

Also joining us today is Sherry Walsh, who will be the contracting officer for this project. Sherry, do you wanna say a few words?

Walsh, Sheri (FHWA) Now I'll just welcome everybody again.

0:1:33.510 --> 0:1:36.330

And then we've also got several members from central federal lands that were on the design team.

We've also got some of our partners represented from the Forest Service, then we've got a handful of interested contractors who's the main audience for this presentation? So we will uh go through this presentation will outline project partners. We'll provide some scope details on the project as well as some photos, just so everyone can kind of get a sense of the lay of the land.

We'll talk about some specifics. Pertinent items in the contract requirements in any solicitation notes and then as I mentioned earlier, we'll allow some time for questions.

Roles and responsibilities. I mentioned central Federal Lands, Highway division. We were the design engineer and will also be handling construction, contract administration. US Forest Service is Land Management agency in New Mexico and DOT is the maintaining agency of this route.

Project is located in the southwest corner of New Mexico just off Hwy 180 between silver and reserve (see map in presentation) Showing you now, the catwalk access Rd right there intersecting off Hwy 180 in Glenwood, this project has schedule A which is about four miles of roadway repairs and minor widening. Option X is an in stream low water crossing and then Option Y is simply a pavement replacement on what we call that the in town section or the first mile of the route, and we'll discuss those schedules and options in more details later on the presentation.

A purpose in need of the project in 2012 the Whitewater Baldy complex fire came through the area, burned hundreds of thousands of acres in this area, and specifically this watershed. This was then followed up the next year in the fall, there was a significant flood event which brought a lot of debris from the watershed and Canyon down into the valley and impacted this roadway, and forcing New Mexico DOT to close the road for a significant amount of time.

And to be Frank, there's not a whole lot going on in Glenwood, NM, and most people that come to visit are going to the Catwalk so when the roads closed and people can’t access the catwalk trail, there's obviously some socioeconomic impacts for the businesses in town. So New Mexico DOT and the Forest Service approached our office about this project in 2015. Really the main purpose is to armor and increase resiliency of the roadway during flood events. So basically, to make it much more feasible and cost efficient for New Mexico DOT to get the road back open after flood events and then of course to provide safe and reliable access to the catwalk trail. We want to prevent those a lengthy Rd closures and the socio economic impacts that they have in town and then improve safety by providing consistent lane width.

Along the five miles of this roadway, the lane widths vary between 9 feet and almost 12 feet, and so there's no rhyme or reason for the lane width. There's a lot of, you know, drivers new to the road are unaware and if they're driving large RV's out to the catwalk trail, it can create some safety issues. Our effort here was just to provide a consistent lane width throughout the majority of the project.

As far as projects scope details, I mentioned uh replacement of 4.8 miles of asphalt surfacing, minor widening beginning near milepost one and continuing on to the catwalk trailhead parking lot to provide that consistent roadway width, which is 10 foot wide lanes and A1 foot shoulder. We plan on replacing two existing in stream concrete, low water crossings of Whitewater Creek, and then we'll be adding or upgrading 6 concrete low water crossings on tributary drainages. Anytime there's a major storm or there all these side drainages that will shed a lot of debris onto the roadway, it's caused erosion and other issues. We're looking to harden those surfaces and just provide a simpler maintenance operation for the

DOT.

We've also got on the North End of the project of minor grades of a section of roadway that's historically been prone to flooding and then replacement of major drainage culverts throughout the route. Here just an aerial map kind of color coded here showing the but you know different scope details. (See map in presentation) here in the blue, starting at the intersection of Hwy. 180 and continuing the little past milepost one, that's what we refer to as our in town section of the existing lanes are nine feet wide.

It's a very tight corridor with property owners and fences very close to the roadway prescriptive right away, and so what we plan on doing there is part of Option Y i to remove and replace the existing asphalt, no widening. We’re just putting back the 9 foot wide lanes with no with no shoulders and then once we get beyond milepost one, the circles here represent a concrete low water crossings.

Once we get to that first concrete low water crossing, we're really we're getting into a more open area and we start our widening. We're fitting in those 10 foot lanes in one foot shoulders and removing and replacing the asphalt.

So as we go from South to North along here, you can see again the circles represent low water crossing locations and the squares represent major culvert replacements. We've got some significant culvert structures that will be replaced, multi barrel culverts with concrete headwalls.

Generally, a concrete pad with some gabian or rip rap or erosion protection on the downstream side to prevent a head cut from advancing into the roadway and then again, as we go along milepost 3, just some additional low water crossings and culverts. As we get towards the North End of our project and right up here at milepost 4.8 is the catwalk trail parking area, it's the end of the road, essentially, but they're in that yellow is representing a section of Rd where we're doing a grade raise of three to four feet. We’ve also got that minor widening in there as well.

Project scope details:

These are taken right from the plans and they're being advertised right now, so this is just our typical section for schedule A. Showing the 10 foot lanes and the 1 foot shoulder, again not looking to have major widening and we've tried to concentrate all those widening efforts to one side of the road. We're not intending to really impact both the cut slope and the fill slope, but we've tried to thread the needle as far as the design goes in and have one or the other so we've tried to push our widening to generally, to one side of the existing route. (see map in presentation) Here is a typical section for a concrete low water crossing that's got a gabian drop structure. So again, you've got the concrete barrier cutoff wall, some rip rap at the inlet side of the low water crossing, and then you know, the road generally sits several feet if not 10s of feet in some locations above the floodplain and the stream channel. We’ve had to accommodate that with these gabian drop structures in several locations. But again, just kind of a typical section there.

Option X is the 1st in stream low water crossing that you come to as you drive north on the road. It's about at mile post 1.2 and there's an existing low water crossing there that the state has been maintaining for two decades now. It's just essentially we've got a head cut that it has advanced upstream and it's starting to undercut and undermine the toe protection down in the channel and then the crowded rip rap slope. We're going to essentially remove the existing low water crossing and replace it with this structure that's been designed. We'll have a lot more embedment and kind of scour protection for future flood events.

(See presentation photos) Just a photo log here, we're kind of we're moving from generally from South to North on the project and this is coming into that that first major low water crossing and the photo log is just really meant to give a general idea of just conditions of the road and then conditions along the road. No real specific items that we need to look at beyond that but again, just you know, here on the South end, this is probably around milepost 1.5. The roads are not in great shape, I've seen worse, but it does need some work and it’s time for some TLC.

There are a few property owners that we've had to get right away agreements with. This gentlemen's home we were actually pushing the roadway to the east and to the right in this photo away from his house. Here we cut slope a little bit, but just trying to make some minor shifts and improvements that way to make the road more enjoyable for everybody.

The existing ground conditions, Whitewater Creek is several 100 feet that the floodplains several 100 feet off the left there at this particular location. And here's one of our major crossing structures.

Because of the change in hydrology of this watershed, we've had to increase the capacity of many of the culverts out there to handle the increase runoff so this will be one where, umm, you know, we'll be removing these culverts in and replacing them and we'll have it. It's still a triple barrel structure. I think we've got 96 inch culverts at this location and then it will have a concrete headwall. And again, just as we're moving along, this photo is actually looking back to the South, but we're getting towards the North End of the project. Then we've got another property owner here that we've actually again shifted to the east to the right about 10 feet just to give us some more room away from that outbuilding and help correct some of this S curve geometry here. Then just beyond that outbuilding, there's an existing, essentially low water crossing, but we'll be doing a significant reconstruction effort here with the gabian wall on the downstream end and getting fitting a concrete pad in, with the idea being that hopefully the DOT can bring in a, a loader and a blade and just kind of scrape things off and get the road open as quickly as possible. Then just another example of some of the existing drainage and culverts that will be replaced as part of the project and then this is opposed essentially 4.8 to the North End of the project, right before you make this left turn go through the 2nd in string crossing of Whitewater Creek and then you're in the Catwalk Trail parking area.

This this is that second crossing of White Water Creek and the parking area for the catwalk trail is off to the right and then the road to the left. So again, just minor upgrades there, putting concrete pad in some cutoff walls, a little bit of rip wrap. This one is actually performing generally well because frankly it's been buried. You can see some of the sediment that was deposited in that flood event in this particular location.

And then here's a photo from the Mesa of the catwalk parking trail head parking area is down lower center of the photo that last in stream low water crossing. Then you can just see kind of the road move to the South through the valley and the floodplain of Whitewater Creek.

Option X is that the existing conditions of that first in stream low water crossing at about milepost 1.2.

You can see that that kind of the toe cutoff wall has started get undermined, and then we're starting to lose some of the grouted rip wrap apron there. Our intent is to remove all that and to rebuild that with a much more robust and sustainable crossing. Then there's another photo looking from the east bank back again. You can have active flows certainly in the Creek, but I don't know when this photo was taken, I would suspect it was spring or fall, but generally the Creek will dry up or go subsurface. You know there's really not a whole lot of runoff in this area and we're just cautious of flows during the monsoon season.

Option Y, what we call the in town section. The first, southernmost mile of roadway right off Hwy. 180 and you can see there are just a number of property owners and parcels packed in pretty tight. We are just going to remove and replace the existing asphalt so essentially just a mill and fill for option Y for that first mile.

Here's another photo showing just how tight the conditions are through this section as far as contract requirements go, we do have for any work in the channel.

We've got a 401 & 404, stream alteration permit so there's nothing really out of the ordinary that most contractors haven't dealt with before in any of those permits, but we'll certainly need to comply with those requirements and they those permits are attached to the invitation for bid.

There will be a contractor develop SWPP and erosion control measures so if some of your contractors have worked with us in the past, we've transitioned to requiring the contractor to develop the SWPP and the erosion control measures so we're not really providing any of that in the plans. We will certainly review the contractor developed SWPP and make sure that the appropriate BMP's are in place as far as environmental commitment go there, there's not a whole lot on this.

The only one of any significance or with dates is vegetation clearing as it relates to a migratory bird species? A nest survey is required for vegetation removal between March 1st and August 30th. So the contractor would be responsible for hiring a biologist to complete that nest survey if they were removing any vegetation in that time.

Gila National Forest has a pretty comprehensive fire plan that's included in the IFB as well. So we want contractors to take note of that and be aware of those requirements.

As far as traffic control requirements go, fairly straightforward in that you know we're allowing up to our standard 30 minute delays, but essentially we've got to keep the contractors to keep one lane of traffic open throughout construction. I think there's enough wiggle room for most of the project to maybe if we have to push a lane out on the shoulder or just close down one lane. I think the only areas where it might become tight is some of those large culvert structures, the multibarrel culverts, but we should have enough room in the right of way to do a shoe fly and be able to get one lane.

The schedule a contract completion date is August 30th of 2024. So essentially about a full calendar year for construction. I think in this area construction can generally occur year round. Certainly there will be during the colder months, December, January, February might not be able to poor concrete without kind of cold concreting measures. We just ask the contractor to consider that as they lay out their schedule.

For Options X&Y if those are awarded, we view that Options X&Y as concurrent work with the work that's in schedule A. We do not plan on awarding any additional contract time for options X or Y.

As far as solicitation notes, this is a full and open advertisement so there are no socioeconomic set asides and any contractor can bid on this.

Our intent is to award the full scope of the work schedule A, Option X and Option Y.

Opening Bid is currently scheduled for July 27th at 2:00 PM Mountain time

If there are subsequent questions that you have, those can be submitted in writing to the CFL contracts email address and the deadline to submit those questions is July 20th.

That concludes the presentation that I had planned on sharing.

I will open it up to any questions that contractors might have as maybe they become familiar with that solicitation package, or maybe there's questions that arose out of the presentation this morning.

I will open the floor and just come off mute to state your question and we'll answer as best we can.

Walsh, Sheri (FHWA) I'll just add that we will post this presentation to sam.gov. so you'll have access to it. You can also save them for and send them to CFL contracts if you don't want to ask the question now.

Well, uh, we must have done a heck of a job putting the plans together in this presentation together that it didn't generate the any questions.

And again, I appreciate folks for joining.

Take care.