Memorandum

City of Lawrence                 

Public Works

 

TO:

Mark Thiel

FROM:

Tom Orzulak, Street Division Manager

Date:

03/22/2011

RE:

2010 Street Division Year End Report

 

 

The City of Lawrence Street Maintenance Division is responsible for 319 center line miles of streets (810 lane miles) with 40 employees. The work force is divided into 4 crews:  asphalt, concrete, levee sweeping, and storm water.

 

The Street Maintenance Division provides a wide range of services, some you would expect and a lot of things you might not. Our normal activities include pothole patching, curb and gutter repair, City owned sidewalks and wheel chair ramps, crack sealing, street sweeping, snow removal and storm drain and pipe cleaning. These are the things that people see us do every day.

 

We take care of 250 miles of open drainage, many of which are in remote areas of the City. We also take care of the three storm water pump stations in North Lawrence. These pumps keep the underpass on North 2nd Street dry and remove up to 22,000 gallons of water per minute from the low lying areas every time it rains.

 

We maintain the Kansas River Levee system. The levee covers 2600 acres and is about 13 miles long. The Levee protects North Lawrence and a large portion of farm land in Douglas County from the Kansas River and Mud Creek. The river levels are monitored by our staff year round and are the first to respond to rising water levels. We also maintain 8 miles of the Levee top for recreation, a popular place for walking, jogging and bike riding.

 

The Street Division provides traffic control devices for special events, all emergencies such as fires or bad traffic accidents and as needed throughout the community. We are also trained for any natural disasters such as tornadoes or floods and are experts at debris removal and management. It is safe to say that no matter what happens in Lawrence, the Street Division is there providing service.  

 

After the hardest winter in memory 2009 / 2010, our main thrust had been on patching. Between January 1 and April 30 of 2010, the majority of all the Street employees were either on snow removal or patching. Midway through April 2010 we were able to turn the corner on patching and start on other projects. An emergency patching contract was let for patching that really helped us. The contract basically resurfaced Iowa St from Harvard to the Irving Hill overpass; patch large areas of 6th St from Folks to Tennessee, Mississippi and Connecticut, Louisiana, Connecticut, Emery and 31st St.  The Asphalt crew has grown the size and scope of their projects.  In 2010 they milled and overlayed the entire 1200 block of Oread Avenue, West Hills Terrace,  and 13th Street. In past years these size projects would have been done under contract.

 

The asphalt crew also assisted the Parks and Recreation Department on several projects; Oak Hill Cemetery and YSI Sports Complex were a few.

 

In 2011 the asphalt crew will be performing the annual city-wide crack sealing project in-house. This project traditionally was contracted in the past. While we have had success with contracting it is our intention to produce a higher quantity of crack sealing at the same cost of contracting with the same quality results.

 

In September of last year, we received a spray injection patch truck and oil tanker. With this piece of equipment we have been able to make more permanent asphalt patches. This equipment makes its own asphalt from “on hand” stocked-piled materials. As long as the pavement temperature is above freezing we can patch. We used this equipment throughout the fall and early winter season on problem areas which has cut down on the number of holes we had this year, 2011.  To date the number of pot holes and pothole calls has been reduced by over half from the previous year.

 

The rebuilding of East 23rd St, concrete repairs of Inverness and the resurfacing of East 19th, all by contract, was also a tremendous help.

 

We also did a Tec-Crete (elastic polymer patch) project with the concrete crew. This was something new for us. Tec-Crete is a hot white elastic polymer asphalt product for concrete repair. It allows you to make permanent concrete repairs in one day. We used this on the Kansas River bridges, the parking garage, Barker Ave, 31st St and various other places with great success. The benefit is that disruption to traffic is less than one day and the patches are as permanent as traditional concrete patches at a lower cost than concrete. The concrete crew’s project scope continues to grow in size and complexity. In 2010 they completed concrete street repairs on 15th St. and West Hills Terr. and Parkway that would have traditionally been done by contract; this saved the city a lot of money and the quality of work is of the same quality. In 2011 the crew’s project scope will grow even further with the concrete rehabilitation of the 1900 block of Delaware St.

 

The continued growth of the division in terms of responsibility, project complexity and size continues to grow with much success. The division’s staff are a group of professionals that are eager to take on these growing responsibilities. In many instances the only limit to their ability will be equipment owned.  I look forward to continued growth of the division with much success.

 

KEY / HIGHLIGHTED PROJECTS COMPLETED

          Represents only a small portion of the total work performed in 2010 by the division

 

  1. Airport Hanger apron
  1. Right turn lane 25th and Iowa
  1. Curb repair Atchison Ave, 30th St, Swartz Rd, Stetson Cir, Monterey Way, 7th St and Alabama, 11th and West Campus Rd, West hills Pky (east side) and  Stratford Rd.
  1. The rebuilding of West Hills Terr form West Hills Pky to West Campus Rd that included all curb, side walk and pavement.
  1. Paving of Locust St, Maple St and 1st St behind Johnny’s in conjunction with the Locust and N2nd project.
  1. Installed new closed drainage system behind Johnny’s in conjunction with the Locust and N2nd project.
  1. Repaired the Bowersock Dam spillway, built a service road and site restoration for the Bowersock Dam project.

 

 
  1. Built a temporary road for the N2nd and Locust.
  1. Installed new catch basins on Tomahawk and Lawrence Ave.
  1. Replaced the foot bridge between Burcham and Constant Park with a tube and repaired             the walkway.
  1. Cleaned the Pioneer Ridge ditch.
  1. Cleaned the University area ditch.
  1. Patched Wakarusa Dr. from Inverness to 18th St
  1. Graded all alleys in the City 1 time.
  1. Swept all City streets one time and all major streets twice.
  1. Swept the downtown 4 times.
  1. Swept the University area twice.
  1. Cleaned 14 miles of storm pipe.
  1. Had 2 major snow storms.
  1. Responded to 726 e-mail and 1,130 Hot line and phone complaints.
  1. Mowed the entire levee 4 times.
  1. Mowed approx. 250 acres of right-of-way, City property and drainage ditches.
  1. Paving Oread Ave. between 12th and 13th.
  1. Paving 13th St from Massachusetts to Connecticut.
  1. Concrete patching on Barker and E15th St
  1. Tec-Crete patching on Inverness, N3rd.31st St, Barker and E15th.
  1. 27.Canyon Dr Concrete repair.

28.  Bob Billing Pky and Bob White Dr concrete repair.
  1. Longleaf Dr concrete repair.
  1. Patching on W15th and Kasold, south of Clinton Pky.
  1. Curb installation at 6th And Florida.
  1. Cleaned the first 2 levee river side tail ditches north of Riverfornt Park.
  1. Swept 5 cycles.

 

PROJECTS IN PROGRESS / PENDING 2011

  1. Bardith Ct concrete repair.
  1. 647 Country Club Terr
  1. 1900 Bk of Delaware.
  1. Pave 13th St from Mass to Tenn.
  1. Pave W6th Terr.
  1. Recycle in place 400 BK of Missouri.
  1. In-house crack sealing

I am sure that a few more projects will be added to the list before the end of the year and we will be ready to fit them in our schedule.

 

 

Some Interesting Numbers.

Street Sweeping, 6,631 miles, 8,56 cu.yds. collected.

Pot Hole Patching, 1,507 tons, 30,472 holes patched.

Snow removal, 6 storms (Jan-Dec), 2,195 tons of material spread.

Concrete, 811 cu. Yds. Poured.

Storm water, 29 catch basins built, 6 major ditches cleaned.

Levee, 5 mowing cycles, 2 major ditches cleaned that were 2,200 feet long combined and over 4,000 cu   yds of earth moved.