Bids on nine road and bridge construction projects worth an estimated $120 million, including the replacement of the White River bridge on Interstate 40 in Prairie County, won't be opened next month because of concerns over federal highway funding, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department announced Thursday.
The announcement marked the fourth time this year the agency has trimmed its list of projects at a bid-letting. In all, 70 projects worth $282 million have been suspended.
The department has been trimming its list of projects in case federal transportation funding slows or stops. To date, Congress has not been able to strike a deal to extend highway funding beyond May 31.
Agency officials say they must have enough cash on hand to pay contractors for work on existing projects.
"Not only have we been forced to withdraw $282 million from our bid openings in 2015, but there are only 24 days remaining until obligation authority expires" for the federal transportation spending, Scott Bennett, the department director, said in a prepared statement. "We operate on a cash basis and are not willing to take risks that would jeopardize the progress of any of our federally-funded projects. To do otherwise is not being fiscally responsible."
Since December, the department said it has been evaluating its schedule of federally funded projects before each bid letting to make sure sufficient state money is available to fulfill its commitments if there are reductions or delays in federal reimbursements. Highway construction projects in Arkansas are initially paid with state funds, and then the state seeks reimbursement from the trust fund for the federal portion of those payments, department officials said.
The slowdown in federal-aid construction projects is somewhat moderated by two state construction initiatives totaling $3 billion, though state highway officials say those funds remain short-term fixes to the state's highway funding issues.
The initiatives are the $1.2 billion interstate repair program and the $1.8 billion Connecting Arkansas Program, which targets improvements on regionally significant projects. The latter is financed in part by a 1/2-percent increase in the statewide sales tax voters approved in 2012. It is in place for 10 years.
The June bid letting still has 58 projects on which low bids could be opened worth $89.5 million. It won't be certain how many will be ready until the list of projects are advertised on Tuesday, agency spokesman Danny Straessle said.
That list includes two major projects that aren't federal-aid project.
One is replacement of the Interstate 30 bridge over the Red River in Miller and Hempstead counties, which is part of the interstate repair program. That program is financed by up to $575 million in bonds that are repaid with federal interstate maintenance funds due the state.
The other is a widening to six lanes from four on a section of Interstate 49 between U.S. 71B and U.S. 412 in Washington County. It is a Connecting Arkansas Program project designed to reduce congestion.
Much of the remaining projects that will be in the June letting are relatively minor projects relying on city-aid funds or county projects using state-aid funds.
Motorists will notice the lack of work this summer, especially the lack of an overlay program, said Richard Hedgecock, executive director of the Arkansas Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America. The overlay program often targets winter road-damage on state highways with a layer of asphalt that can lengthen the life of a roadway and put off more extensive work.
"There's no overlay program and we've had a brutal winter so the repairs aren't going to happen," he said. "As we kick the can down the road, it falls into potholes."
For that he blames the leadership in Congress, which has been unable to agree on a long-term or short-term way to raise more money for the trust fund.
"We went to D.C. last month and met with members of the delegation all of whom were open to getting something down but none of whom were in a position to get anything done," Hedgecock said. "It's frustrating."
Of the projects pulled from the June 9 letting, replacement of the White River bridge was the biggest, worth between $75 million and $90 million, according to Straessle. It wasn't a federal-aid project, but its cost likely was a factor in pulling it.
The Arkansas Highway Commission authorized replacement of the 47-year-old bridge in 2011 a few months after record rainfall and flooding from the White River covered the east approaches to the bridge for several days in May. A $53 million project, also awarded in 2011, focused on a 10-mile section of the interstate straddling the bridge in Prairie and Monroe counties to help.
Development of the project began before the flooding, but the engineering for the project was designed to mitigate the potential for future flooding, according to state highway officials. The project included replacing two main-lane bridges over the Cache River with ones that are a foot higher. The project also replaced two overpasses in the area of the project and rehabilitated the existing lanes and shoulders.
The other projects pulled from the June bid letting included:
•Replacing drainage structures on County Road 53 in Clay County.
•Replacing a bridge over a branch of Caney Creek on Arkansas 284 in Cross County.
•Replacing a bridge over Gut Creek on U.S. 63 in Fulton County.
•Replacing a bridge over Moore's Slough Tributary on Arkansas 291 in Grant County.
•Replacing at ditch structure on Arkansas 131 in Lee County.
•Improvements on Arkansas 18 at Manila in Mississippi County.
•Replacing a bridge at the Bauxite & Northern Railroad Spur on Arkansas 183 in Saline County.
•Selected freeway ramp pavement high-friction surface treatment improvements statewide. The treatment helps minimize wet-weather crashes.
Metro on 05/08/2015