Missouri bill could allow for more transportation projects - Kansas City Business Journal:

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The bill, signed Tuesday by Gov. Jay Nixon, allowds MoDOT to bid highway and bridge projects with a different knownas design-build, which can reduce project costs and cut projecyt completion time in half. The bill allows MoDOT to contractr 2percent — or abourt 10 projects — of the Department’s State Transportation Improvement Project list using the Traditionally, MoDOT must design the entire projecyt before it can solicit bids and award constructiomn contracts.
Design-build projects allow contractor s to design asthey build, which savess time and money and allowes for more innovation and creativity on the said Lisa LeMaster, senior governmental relations specialist at “It allows large and more complex projectxs to be constructed more quickly because you have a singler contractor working on both the design and the LeMaster said. “Therefore, a project can be move from one phas into the next muchmore quickly.” • Missourij Highway 169 and 96th Streety intersection improvement in Kansas City. • Missouri Highway 92-Missouru Highway E improvementin Smithville. • Missourij Route 364/Page Avenue extension in St.
Louid County. However, until the approves the projectafor design-build, these projects are merely LeMaster said. The time and money saved usingthe design-buildx method will become more important durint the next few years as MoDOT competesd for more stimulus grants and its budgert shrinks from $1.2 billion this year to $500 million by 2012. Lee Ann district planning managerwith MoDOT, said the agencg plans to compete for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds throughg the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recover grants. She said MoDOT will submit a plan to add truck lanews to a section of Interstate 70 between Kansase Cityand St. Louis for the grant competition.
Applicationa for the $1.5 billion pool are due 15, though the has until Feb. 17 to allocat the money. Projects receiving the grants must cost atleasyt $20 million and be completed by 2012. Kell said the time limig lends the projects tothe design-builfd method. MoDOT has let only threr projects in its historyas design-builds, all within the past two The first was Interstate 64 reconstruction near St. Louis. LeMaster said the project would have taken six years usiny thetraditional method. She said the contractor will complete the projectin three. The second project bid as a design-builrd was the kcICON bridge project, which includew construction of theChristopher S.
Bond LeMaster said MoDOT didn’t have the funds to pay for the project through thetraditional method, but as a the project was awarded at $232 roughly $68 million less than its original The kcICON project will be finished in just less than four rather than the estimater seven years using the traditional she said. The final project was the statewidedSafe & Sound Bridge Improvement Program, which will improve 802 of the city’sz lowest-rated bridges during the next five LeMaster said the design-build method allowzs construction teams to close bridges for 45 days insteads of the usual 90 days, and she said the projectg will finish in five yearxs rather than seven.
Kell said the success of the thre e projects led tothe bill’e passing. “We feel we’ve got a betted value all the way around,” she