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Report on Northend Greenway Unsolicited PPEA Proposal.
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Presented By: Kurt Hodgen .
Recommendation and Review
In April of this year, the City received an unsolicited PPEA proposal to construct the Northend Greenway Shared Use Path. Per the guidelines of this process, city staff have reviewed the proposal and would recommend to Council that it is not in the interest of the City to proceed with the proposal. Such recommendation is based on the following: 1) the proposed project exceeds the scope of work anticipated by Council; 2) the proposed project exceeds the amount of available funding for the project; and 3) the proposal included no viable alternatives to overcome the exceeding of available funding.
Staff has considered other options available at this time relative to the project and believe we essentially have three possibilities:
1. Revert to a "traditional" engineering design, right-of-way acquisition, and construction bid process for Phase 1 of the project.
2. Do nothing at this time. This would not be a preferred option as the City is under time constraints from VDOT to spend the $600,000 in Revenue Sharing funds that were made available for the project. It is possible that the Revenue Sharing Funds could be moved to a different project, subject to VDOT approval.
3. Consider an alternative project. With the pending construction of the new grocery store project at the intersection of North Main and Mt Clinton Pike and its requirement to construct a bike and pedestrian path along the road frontage, the City could consider continuing that path along Mt. Clinton Pike to its intersection with Virginia Avenue. There is existing city right-of-way along most of this route, along with existing street lighting. Preliminary, in-house cost estimates indicate that the work could be done at or near the amount of existing available funding
It is recommended that Council refer these options back to the Bike and Pedestrian sub-committee for consideration and recommendation of one of the above alternatives.