Highway 14

Partnership

questions

MnDOT's

dividing of

projects

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- In light of rising costs, the Highway 14 Partnership steering committee is questioning Minnesota Department of Transportation's penchant for dividing highway construction projects up into small segments.

The committee learned at its meeting in New Ulm Thursday completing the remaining three segments of the Eagle Lake-Owatonna leg of the U.S. Highway 14 four-lane expansion project is going to be far more expensive than originally projected.

According to MnDOT's updated construction and right-of-way purchase costs, projected in 2004 dollars, construction of the 27.3-mile leg would cost $150 million and the rights-of-way remaining to be purchased would amount to $11 million.

That same project projected in 2001 dollars totaled $125 million for construction and $9.6 million in right-of-way costs.

The kicker is that while Segment A, 4.8 miles of four-lane east of Eagle Lake will be completed in November, construction of Segment B is planned to start sometime between 2004 and 2006, but work on Segment C and D has been pushed back to a 2010-2014 start for C and a 2010-2013 start for D.

So, it's anyone's guess as to what the construction figures will be for the remaining segments when work actually begins on them.

There's some hope, however, that the overall cost of finishing the leg may not be as high as MnDOT has projected.

Construction costs on the 4.8-mile Segment A from Highway 60 to Smith's Mill just west of Janesville was estimated to total $22 million in 2001 dollars. Right-of-way costs were estimated at $1.2 million.

While right-of-way costs came in at $1.6 million, construction costs came in at $13.4 million. However, the unforeseen need for muck excavation and granular backfill increased costs by $4 million. Still, that put the construction side of the project in at $17.4 million, $4.6 million below the 2001 construction estimate.

Whether that trend would continue throughout the lifetime of the overall project is problematical.

"We just don't see the sense of 1-to-2-mile segments being built when working on longer stretches would seem to be more economical," said New Ulm Mayor Joel Albrecht, acting chair of the Highway 14 Partnership.

Of course, MnDOT's response is that the size of the segment is governed by the amount of demand for highway construction dollars in any one construction year.

Because the acquiring of right-of-way easements are geared to the start of construction, the biggest percentage increase is being seen in right-of-way costs which are increasing at a faster rate than construction costs.

"This is why our biggest job is in Washington in trying to get the requested $64 million to accelerate construction all along the project," Albrecht said. "The faster this gets done; the faster MnDOT can get started on the New Ulm-Mankato segment."