More Trail to Nowhere© Bothersome Stuff

Reading the staff report for the May 20th Trail to Nowhere© rehash I came across this little nugget:

Early in the design phase, the construction cost was estimated at $4million. Because of City Council direction to keep within the estimate, staff simplified the trail crossing at Richman Avenue, and simplified the connection at Independence Park to reduce the total estimated cost prior to putting out to bid.

$4,000,000?! How on earth did staff get to that number for construction? Who knows? And how did it become $1,800,000? The following sentence shines the light on staff’s desire to look like they waged a ruthless war of economy – only listing a couple of minor items that don’t add up to millions. But boy they sure were trying hard to follow “City Council Direction” to keep within the estimate, whatever that was.

But of course they failed. And the new City’s share for this boondoggle rose 91% to $630,000.

Even more disturbing to me is what I believe is an artificially low-bid, made to fit exactly the so-called “Engineer’s Estimate” provided to bidders – $1,845,776. How that number relates to a $4,000,000 the “early design” estimate I’ll ignore.

The real issue to me is whether the contractor wrote off their profit and overhead to get this job. The median bid for this project was $2,286,000 – $440,000 and 24% more than the low bid. I think somebody kept sharpening their pencil ’til there was nothing left but wood shavings and graphite dust. Either that or they bungled the bid. If that’s the case we may definitely expect change orders to help bolster the contractor’s motivation for the job. The consequences are the same.

The public doesn’t even get to see the plan for the job. I suspect the Council hasn’t seen a final design either, even though they’re expected to approve it. One thing the agenda item does include “are a few elevations “3D renderings” (above) of the trail at four points. There are lots of happy, recreating people shown, verdant flower beds and mature trees. There’s nothing that looks like the forlorn neglect of Phase I. No drug deals, no graffiti and no homeless.

Something else is missing, too. For some reason the renderings ignore the clear 10ft buffer zones required by the Council back in January, 2024. Maybe these views are just holdovers from before the thing was approved. If so, that’s just sloppy and lazy.

Ironically, Trail to Nowhere© advocates are getting shortchanged and don’t even know it. The original bike trail was supposed to be concrete and is now just cheaper asphalt. The 10,560 shrubs described in the grant application are now just 600. But it’s all great. City Hall is giving “them” something good.