LOVELAND — The Federal Highway Administration has approved a $3.3 million project for a permanent reconstruction project of Railroad Avenue and an additional bridge just south of the road’s BNSF Railway crossing.
According to Chris Carlson, city of Loveland engineer, state and federal officials’ first project cost estimates after the 2013 flood destroyed the road were $5.2 million. That is $1.9 million more than the Loveland engineering staff’s final design.
The 2013 flood washed away entire sections of the road.
“Initially, it looked like the thing to do would be to raise the profile of the road up, level with the railroad tracks,” said Jeff Bailey. senior civil engineer for the city of Loveland. “The assumption was that by doing this we could shore up the railroad embankment to keep it from failing and also reduce downstream flow to the park. It was actually making the situation worse if we had another similar flood.”
He said that raising the road would result in an increased flow velocity that would increase the damage to Fairgrounds Park downstream.
Instead, Carlson said, the project will elevate a portion of Railroad Avenue near the existing bridge, north of the crossing, so that floodwater will flow south and then east into the portion of Fairgrounds Park that doesn’t have any structures, reducing overall damage.
Carlson added that the federal grant also will fund the construction of a 100-foot bridge south of the BNSF Railway crossing on Railroad Avenue; the new bridge will line up with an existing bridge that the railroad tracks sit on.
The bridge portion of the project will cost about $1 million.
He said the bridge will greatly reduce the amount of overflowing water in a flood similar to the 2013 disaster, when the railroad embankment acted almost as a dam until it could no longer hold the accumulating water.
Carlson said the city’s team of engineers created a two-dimensional model to predict where the water would flow in a flood to create the design plan.
Carlson said after the completion of the project, the area would need to be closed down for only 50-year floods and anything more severe. Damage from events such as a 10-year storm would be greatly reduced.
He said with the design, an event like the 2013 flood would still cause damage, but it would be greatly reduced.
The city is contributing about $283,965. The release stated that approximately $700,000 in additional city costs for downstream channel improvements could not be included in the federal funding, as it falls outside of the street’s right of way. That amount plus the local match are accounted for in a 2014-15 supplemental budget request approved by the City Council.
The temporary repairs to Railroad Avenue, Carlson said, would last one to five years. The release stated that the street was open for the first time after the flood in mid-December. The temporary repairs cost the city $100,000.
Officials hope construction on the permanent repairs will begin by Labor Day 2016.
“We are pretty much fast-tracking the project,” Bailey said. “We expect design to be done in late winter, and we should get it out to bid then. We hope to start construction by Labor Day. We are doing that so we have less of an impact in summer months.”
