OT: bridge replacement cost

"In April, the City of Yankton was awarded a part of the South Dakota Transportation Commission Bridge, Improvement Grant (BIG) to help with costs associated with replacing
the aging Pine St. Bridge. The state awarded $855,000 with the city currently slated to contribute $640,000.
The 41-foot, single-span, deck, concrete arch structure with classical revival detailing was originally built in 1912 and features railings consists of spindle-shaped balusters set
off by concrete posts ornamented with recessed panels. When the bridge was built in 1912, construction cost $3,700, which is about $90,000 in today?s standards."

This was pulled from the P&D paper. It amazes me when I see numbers like these. 90,000 versus 1,495,000. I know the 90 is not realistic in todays world but it sure makes me
wonder who's pockets are getting lined with the left over 1.4 million,
 
90K isn't realistic, but 95K is?

Heck, 90K wouldn't even pay the salaries of two unskilled laborers on the project, let alone any skilled workers.

Labor and materials cost has outpaced inflation too. There's a lot less of that 1.4 million pie left to line pockets than you think.
 
Before making a statement like that, do a material cost estimate for concrete, structural steel, piles/sheet piling (if necessary) temporary weather protection etc/ Pinning down labor won't be as easy, then figure in general conditions, profit and overhead on all. Once done, you'll have a much better idea vs speculation. Material alone will shed some light, you can apply a percentage to roughly figure labor based on material cost, still an estimate, but not so much a guess. The lump sum bid world is often times a lot tighter than you think.
 
I think a lot if it has to do with the standards today. It's gotta be earth quake resistant, meet certain load requirements and standards that didn't apply way back when. Plus today with federal money involved the company that wins the contract must either be union or pay union scale for that contract.

Rick
 
Funny how those old bridges are still standing after all these years. When they built many of them they had no idea of how much weight things were going to weigh today going over them. At least that's the case in Canal Fulton Ohio. The old stone bridge had to handle all the traffic while the newer steel one was being rebuilt.
 
Don't forget you have to have at least 2 special people on the pay roll if you know what I mean. Local company lost a bid on a road because they did not have the right "token" on pay roll. The company that got the job has 2 that set in the shade and listen to there music drawing a pay check.
 
Years ago I worked driving a dump truck doing roads and bridges and you would not believe how much wasted $$ go into them. Help with a new bridge over a river on Hwy 54 here in Missouri. One day a guy comes in and surveys things and say that it is 1 inch above grade. Took a full week of working 6 days and 10 hours per day with 10 trucks at $50 per hour to take it down. The next week a different guy comes in and does a survey and say it is 1 inch below grade put it all back in. Another full 6 day week at $50 per tuck to haul stuff back in. That is a lot of $$ that did not need to be spent but it was
 
What were the bids on the project? I'm assuming it was competitively bid. Anything we do on a county level costing over $20,000 has to be let out for bids.

It always amazes me that on, say, a quarter of a million dollar project with three bidders, the bids will be only a few dollars apart. Allowing for contingencies, the margin isn't as wide as you'd think. It doesn't take much of an error for the contractor to lose money on a project.
 
I was not implying that 95 was ok. What I was trying to say is look at how foobaarreddd the whole system is. This is just an example with numbers provided by an outside
source. We have added 1.4 million of expense onto a project in the last hundred years.
 
I know nothing about the project. I just came across the article in the paper and thought it was interesting how much the expense side has increased. We had to replace the water tower in our village and the bids were surprisingly close in my opinion. The part that surprised me was the engineering expense.
 
One politician getting a million, one manager getting $200,000 one survey company getting 100,000 and 100,000 for the bridge. sounds perfectly logical to me.
 
I imagine that after you include all the environmental impact studies, engineering, soil samples, etc then it cost significantly more than just labor and material. Small County bridge south if me is being replaced. IIRC the cost is about 600k. The old Bridge is from when that road was part of the highway and built in 1946. Funny part is that the road is just over 1 mile long and connects 2 state highways like the long side of a triangle. They could just about close it, but 3 people live on that road on the wrong side of the bridge. Not complaining, just saying.
 
Seems expensive but not really. The old Meridian HWY 81 Bridge in Yankton was taken over by the city as a historical site. A plaza was built on the north end of the bridge which includes a fountain and a walkway that has sprinklers/jets that spray up in the air. The street was take out and closed. The fountain is like the one in Oklahoma City Memorial Pool. It has to be perfectly level to work correctly. The Yankton fountain was not level when completed but was corrected.

Total Project cost around $500,000.

The 1912 bridge balusters are in really bad shape. The concrete has crumbled so bad the rebar is showing.
 
Its too bad Nebraska doesn't have anything to offer on there side of the bridge. I know the camp ground just got put in but thats about it for now. When they built the new bridge and put the water fountain in by burger king you would not believe the amount of comments I heard from women about them being associated with a part of the male anatomy. Stay cool in the heat.
 
1. Must maintain traffic flow while bridge is replaced, adds significant cost.

2. Overhead cost of complying with state accounting regulations.

3. OSHA

4. Testing and inspection.

5. Health insurance, workers comp, liability insurance.

6. Environmental regulations, especially near a stream or river.

I am sure I am leaving out a bunch of cost that didn't exist in 1912.
 
It's true what was said on the Republician convention last night by the R.I. delegate about this state being corrupt. I am sure that even though others are not as bad some of the money isn't for the bridge. In this state we have high taxes and come in near the bottom of all scales as to how states are doing. So where does the money go, not back to the people. So, inspite of the whining by the nnalert, that guy was right on.
 
Rick,
I don't disagree with you but when you say: "It's gotta be earth quake resistant, meet certain load requirements and standards that didn't apply way back when." I have to ask how did the original last so long without all that? Maybe the answer is back then they built it with pride in workmanship and without the expense of all the modern day BS.
Pete
 
When they repaired a bridge near here a few years ago they had to strip off all the old paint from the ironwork. But it had lead in it they had to catch every flake before it fell into the river. I don't know how much that added to the cost but it was into six figures - just to chip off the old paint.
 
(quoted from post at 15:42:13 07/21/16) Rick,
I don't disagree with you but when you say: "It's gotta be earth quake resistant, meet certain load requirements and standards that didn't apply way back when." I have to ask how did the original last so long without all that? Maybe the answer is back then they built it with pride in workmanship and without the expense of all the modern day BS.
Pete

Pete that wasn't always the case and a lot of bridges failed because they were not properly engineered or were built with substandard material. Plus today they have to install silt barriers and treat anything painted as hazardous materials because of lead based paint. People don't realize just how much money EPA and OSHA regs cost. Now I don't want to go back to how things were prior to those agencies but somewhere a balance has to be reached.

Rick
 
I have to laugh at these clueless comments about two guys "sitting in the shade" and comments like it. I worked in the construction business for 44 years, the last 12 years in senior management. We never had nor could we afford to have anyone "sit in the shade". If the guy didn't work he was gone! And yes, we were one of those dreaded union contractors.
 
I agree with you- but don't think that your experience is going to matter to this bunch. What they heard at the coffee shop or on Fox is always going to be correct.
 
I have to agree with you. I have been in road construction with a union contractor for 37 years. I have only seen one guy sit in the shade and he worked for a non - union contractor..
 
They had a not well advertised meeting about the build Nebraska projects last week in McCook. Sounds like they are figuring on expanding 83, there's been surveyors out all week. 80 miles from Kansas to i80, 140 or so miles from Kansas to US 283, 10,000 square miles in this corner of the state and the earth's axis apparently runs through McCook. 83 and 18 were the only projects the district engineer and manager could come up with. They've obviously never gone north out of Cambridge or counted the trucks that go through the ethanol plant in a day.

They still think that a town that effectively banned new housing development for 25 years, in a county of 11,000, with 3% unemployment, is going to attract a large enough plant to create enough traffic to justify turning 83 into an interstate. These are the same people who will pass you when you're doing 70 and walk away like you're parked. They also don't realize that even at the peak of the drilling in North Dakota, the steady stream of oilfield freight and workers wasn't enough traffic to justify an upgrade, and no one in their right mind going east, or to Denver and points west, is going to go to North Platte to hit the Interstate.

I think the last point is why people are running 80-85 mph. Trying to make up the time it takes to cover the extra 70 miles they added by being impatient about getting to the interstate.
 
bridges built many years ago didn't have the heavier loads of today, and traffic volume was far less. fatigue stress of welds are very dependent on the number of repetitive stress cycles, and the lead paint used is in my opinion far superior to todays paints. the volume of road salt today is many times that of years ago.
 
In that day some public works projects were built by guys who worked just for food, housing and clothing (striped). Low overhead.
 
I keep hearing about these great union jobs where you sit in the shade and I just keep going on ones where they want you to work . Where are these jobs?
 
All I ever heard on a road job " lets go screw the pipe ,lets go , get more pipe . We gotta beat the Portugese or we will lose this work , lets go get the pipe in the trench." Move or go back to the hall. Darn union.
 
Well it's actually a pretty good deal where you wound up actually getting a bridge . The state of Oregon spent something like $200 million doing a study for a proposed new I-5 bridge over the Columbia River that never was built. Oregon insisted the bridge had to include light rail, Washington said they were not going to contribute any money if light rail was included. So no bridge just a lot of money down the river.
 
And forgot to add in that now they have to do geological and environmental studies before a produce is approved. I know a couple of years ago they did a geological on a 2.5 acre plot with the idea of a single story structure, municipal liquor store. Cost for just the geological was 125K. Imagine what it is for something like a bridge today. Bad part was the city paid that out to find out they couldn't build there! That 2.5 acres was considered wetlands by the MN EPA. They said no permit from them.

Rick
 

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