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Home Page > Telluride Area Resources > Local News Third Time's a CharmContract Awarded for Keystone Hill Project The Telluride Watch Published:5/12/06 By Josie Jay After a year and a half and two prior attempts to find a successful bidder for the Colorado Hwy. 145 construction project on Keystone Hill, the Colorado Department of Transportation has awarded the $11 million contract to Kiewit Western Company of Littleton. "Basically what happened was the bids we got on our last two attempts to bid this out were more than 10 percent over an engineering estimate," said CDOT spokeswoman Nancy Shanks. "By statute, we have to reject those." After each of those bid outs, state engineers went back to the drawing board to rework the plans. Part of that reworking included shortening the project by a few hundred yards and reviewing some of the geological procedures. "It worked well the third time," said Shanks. "Perhaps that shows the contractors did a little more research as well." The exact start date and times of day for construction will be set at a preconstruction meeting between CDOT and Kiewit at the end of May. "Right now we're looking at late June or after the Fourth of July to start," she said. "Commuters will see us out there between now and then, but we won't be within traffic until most likely after the holiday." The construction area stretches just under a mile, between mile markers 72 and 73 on Keystone Hill. "It will involve the addition of shoulders and adding a climbing lane that will improve the safety of that stretch," said Shanks. A total of 13 retaining walls will be built on both the uphill and downhill sides of the road "It's a safety improvement project," said Shanks. "Right now people don't have those shoulders. Errant drivers, especially in wintry conditions, have no place to go." Passing slower vehicles on that narrow two-lane stretch can be a dangerous proposition. "As traffic increases, this is also a mobility project." Shanks said CDOT was pleased to be able to award Kiewit the contact, having worked with the company in the past. "We've worked with them on quite a few projects," she said, including Denver's T-REX project and the Wolf Creek Pass project. "There are similarities between it and the Keystone Hill project, being built on challenging mountain terrain." She said CDOT has also been working closely with San Miguel County and the towns of Telluride and Mountain Village and will continue to do so as construction gets underway. "We are aware of a lot of things going on in the Telluride area, and we will certainly do our best to lessen those impacts," she said. "We'll do our best to accommodate bus schedules when possible and certain large events that Telluride has. "Obviously, people are going to be delayed, and we want people to know that – like any other project we have in southwest Colorado on a narrow two-lane mountain highway." Preliminary estimates for traffic delays are around a half hour, but they will most likely increase at certain times of the project. "We don't anticipate a lot of blasting, but that's possible, and at times of high traffic, delays could exceed a half hour," said Shanks. "That's another thing we'll work on communicating with the traveling public and town." A public information manager will be assigned to the project, and there will be a project hotline and postings on CDOT's website (www.dot.state.co.us). "We want to make sure we give everybody updated information and that it will be easy to access," said Shanks. The project will span two seasons, with possible winter work. "What we'll do is work until the snow flies," said Shanks. "We could be doing some work in the wintertime, but it will most likely be minor. Then we'll be back again next summer." Specific information on the project's start date will be available at the end of May. |
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