Project Title & Location
SR 539 - Tenmile to International Border Widening

Project Description
Widening Guide Meridian Road to four lanes will increase safety and traffic capacity along this heavily-traveled traffic corridor. This widening work will also provide an additional lane of traffic in each direction along a major freight corridor between Bellingham and Aldergrove, British Columbia.

Contractor/Consultant
KPFF is the design consultant

Recent Progress

Design continues to move forward, focusing now the inclusion of roundabouts at key intersections along the alignment, as well as upon possible adjustments to the proposed alignment of roadway improvements to avoid costly environmental and utility impacts.  Methods identified during the Value Engineering (VE) study last year to streamline the design and property acquisition process are being implemented.  Asymmetrical widening, a separate contract plans package for the Nooksack River bridge, and the use of a turn-key Right-of-Way (R/W) acquisition consultant are all expected to help keep the project on schedule. 

Comments received during and after the Open House in February 2005 indicated that the community was interested in seeing additional turn-around points between the Wiser Lake Road and Lynden, as well as on the north edge of Lynden.  As a result, two additional roundabouts are under consideration at River Road and Main Street.  Another Open House will be held in late July for two consecutive nights in order to present the final project design to the community, and to provide information focused on the R/W appraisal and acquisition process.

WSDOT Northwest Region Real Estate Services (NWR RES) has retained a R/W Appraisal and Acquisition consultant in order to streamline R/W acquisition and accelerate the schedule.  A kick-off meeting with the consultant was held on May 25th to discuss and coordinate the work surrounding R/W acquisition.  R/W plans for the southern half of the project have been approved by HQ R/W Plans Review and parcel appraisal is ready to begin in this section of the project.  Early acquisition of one parcel is already underway.  R/W plans for the northern half of the project are still under development. Several key design decisions are pending that will affect R/W needs, mainly the road section through Lynden and whether or not the Main Street roundabout will be built instead of a standard signalized intersection.  These issues will be resolved with Lynden by the end of June, at which time the northern R/W plan set will be completed and submitted to NWR for review.  Estimates were given of 2 weeks for NWR review and another 6 weeks for HQ review, which puts the estimated point of final approval for the northern R/W plan set at the end of August. 

The estimated cost of R/W acquisition has continued to drop since last summer, but is still significantly higher than the existing $5.3M R/W budget.  The True Cost Estimate and Project Cost Breakdown (PFE) prepared by NWR RES on May 16th now shows an estimated cost of $15M, down $2.5M from the February 2005 estimate of $17.5M.  Opportunities to reduce this cost further will continue to be pursued as design progresses.  Due to the current R/W budgetary constraints, parcels are being prioritized for acquisition in order to maximize the existing R/W budget until additional funding can be secured.

The concept of advancing the Nooksack River bridge construction as a separate contract in order to allow an additional construction season to build the bridge has also been proposed.  The WSDOT Bridge Design group has indicated that they can have plans ready for an April 2007 ad date, allowing bridge construction to start at least six months ahead of main phase construction.  The geotechnical consultant is currently analyzing soils data to prepare bridge foundation recommendations.  There is some concern about the bearing capacity of the poor soils in this area - early indication is that these soils will not support the drilled-shaft foundations that were part of the conceptual bridge design, so piles will have to be used.  If placed too close to the existing bridge, the new piles could create down drag on the existing bridge piles, causing the existing bridge to settle.  To avoid this the new bridge may have to be built farther from the existing bridge than originally thought.  Additionally, the poor soils may not be able to support a new bridge without placing an extra support pier in the river.  The project had planned on spanning the channel to avoid ESA and permitting issues with placing a pier in the river.  If a pier needs to be placed in the river there is a significant risk to the project schedule.

Design Construction Impacts

As noted above, the additional funding required for R/W acquisition continues to be of concern.  The possibility of shifting funds from the Construction funding into the R/W phase is being examined, and would be the most immediate means to provide the required funding for full property acquisition.  In conjunction with the funding shift, phasing the R/W acquisition and/or construction is also being examined as an option to cope with the budget shortfall.  Additional funding to ultimately make up the shortfall in the overall project budget will be pursued with the Legislature.

Environmental Impacts / Compliance

An Environmental Assessment was completed with a finding of "no significant impact" in 1998.  These documents are being updated.   A new basin-wide approach to wetland mitigation continues to be examined for implementation on this project, and may include the use of offsite wetland mitigation.

Environmental documents obtained to date: EA w/4(f) (9/98), FONSI (4/99), SEPA adoption (5/99).  SEPA adoption will need to be repeated as part of EA update process.

Impacts to Traffic

We are currently developing alternative ways to stage construction so that there will be fewer lane closures and smaller delays on traffic during construction.

Planned vs. Actual Expenditures
(Total Project Cost)

Nickel funds included in above costs

2005 Transportation Partnership Account