Title
Recommendation to Authorize the Acting City Manager to Execute a Cooperative Agreement with the Department of Transportation (“Caltrans”) in an Amount not to Exceed $184,000 for Caltrans to Review and Approve the Project Initiation Document (PID), which is Required by Caltrans, to Determine the Project’s Scope, Cost and Schedule for the Central Avenue Safety Improvement Project; and Execute a Contract with CDM Smith in the Amount of $372,928, Including Contingency, for Engineering, Planning, and Outreach Services to Prepare the PID. (Transportation 91815)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Elizabeth D. Warmerdam, Acting City Manager
Re: Recommendation to Authorize the Acting City Manager to: (1) Execute a Cooperative Agreement with the Department of Transportation (“Caltrans”) in an Amount not to Exceed $184,000 for Caltrans Quality Assurance, and Approval of the Work for the Central Avenue Safety Improvement Project (“Project”) and (2) Execute a Contract with CDM Smith in the Amount of $372,928 Including Contingency, for Engineering, Planning, and Outreach Services for the Project
BACKGROUND
In 2016, the City Council approved a concept to improve Central Avenue except for the Webster Street/Central Avenue intersection. The approved concept includes a reduction from 4 to 3 travel lanes, a center turn lane, bike lanes, a 2-way separated bikeway adjacent to 3 schools, 2 traffic signals, curb extensions at 14 intersections, 3 pedestrian refuge islands, rectangular rapid flashing beacons at 5 locations, 9 new crosswalks and street trees/rain gardens. The purpose of the improvements is to make Central Avenue safer for Alamedans in cars, on bikes and walking along this study area.
The project area, which is 1.7 miles in length, is along Central Avenue between Pacific Avenue/Main Street and Sherman Street/Encinal Avenue, and is designated as Caltrans State Highway 61 between Webster Street and Sherman Street. Central Avenue is in school and recreation zones, an island arterial and a truck and transit route. The Central Avenue study area has a disproportionate number of injuries from collisions compared to other streets in the City. The concept phase included an outreach process, options analysis and partial design for this corridor. City staff will be returning to community members to discuss alternative strategies for the Webster Street/Central Avenue intersection.
In 2017, the City received funding from the Caltrans Active Transportation Program for $7.3 million and from Alameda County Transportation Commission’s federal/state funding source distributions for $3.5 million, which totals $10.8 million in federal and state grant monies for construction. When factoring in the local match requirements, the total project cost is over $12 million. The City’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for fiscal years 2017-19 is sufficient to fund this Project Initiation Document PID phase, which is a required next step for projects on a State Highway System as the Central Avenue corridor is partially on State Route 61.
The purpose of a PID is to define the project’s scope, cost and schedule and to obtain conceptual approval by Caltrans before proceeding to further design, environmental review and construction. The PID will not be finalizing outstanding issues such as the Webster Street/Central Avenue intersection but rather will achieve consensus on the purpose-and-need, scope and schedule of the project for future analyses and approvals that will occur in subsequent phases. The PID will include a comprehensive community engagement process, which will focus mainly on the Webster Street/Central Avenue intersection, consisting of stakeholder outreach, community workshops, public opinion surveys, a web site (<https://alamedaca.gov/public-works/central-avenue-complete-street>) maintained by City staff and a Transportation Commission meeting. This effort will continue the outreach that already took place during the concept phase in 2013 to 2016, with an ongoing focus on the key stakeholders of Bike Walk Alameda and the West Alameda Business Association.
DISCUSSION
Next Steps for PID Phase - Caltrans Coordination
To implement this next PID phase in the Central Avenue Safety Improvement Project, the City will need to fund Caltrans staff to review work products and will need to hire a consultant team specializing in Caltrans processes and transportation planning, engineering and outreach. For Caltrans coordination, City staff met with Caltrans staff on November 13, 2017, and collaborated on next steps including the cooperative agreement as shown in Exhibit 1, which totals $184,000 for Caltrans staff time to work on the PID.
Request for Proposals - Engineering Team
City staff issued a request for consultant team qualifications on October 17, 2017. City staff received 13 timely submitted qualifications, interviewed 9 consultant teams, and selected 5 as qualified Engineering Teams on the Certified List. On January 18, 2018, City staff issued a request for proposals to the Engineering Teams on the Certified List for the Central Avenue Complete Street PID and Optional Amendments for the Project Approval and Environmental Document (PA&ED) and the Plans, Specifications and Estimates (PS&E). City staff received 4 timely submitted proposals and selected the CDM Smith team, which is the Engineering Team that best meets the City’s needs. Exhibit 2 is the CDM Smith team proposal that the City received on February 8, 2018. Exhibits 3 and 4 are the final work scope and budget.
CDM Smith Team Recommendation
CDM Smith has assembled a team of highly qualified consultants that have complete streets, City and Caltrans experience to bring the Central Avenue project closer to implementation. CDM Smith was the prime consultant for the City’s Transportation Choices Plan as well as for the City of Seattle’s Madison Street complete street project and the City of San Francisco’s Van Ness Avenue Bus Rapid Transit project, which are comparable in complexity and scale to the Central Avenue project. CDM Smith’s work on complex complete streets projects in high volume business corridors has positioned them as experts in providing improved mobility options for users of all modes and in promoting safety through context-sensitive planning and design. CDM Smith is a full service engineering and construction firm that has direct traffic engineering, multimodal and Caltrans experience in the Bay Area and across the country, and is on the cutting edge of implementing innovative transportation solutions. CDM Smith staff are based out of their San Francisco office, and are supported by 5,000 staff in 125 offices around the world.
The CDM Smith team includes PlaceWorks, Parsons, Paleo Solutions, JRP Historical, Eisen Letunic and Pacific Legacy. PlaceWorks was the prime consultant for the Central Avenue’s concept phase from 2013 to 2016, and specializes in planning, outreach, environmental review, urban design, landscape architecture and mapping. Parsons sub-consultant is an expert in Caltrans processes, engineering and construction, and has nearly 14,000 employees at more than 100 locations worldwide. Eisen Letunic and Paleo Solutions are disadvantaged business enterprises.
PID Work Scope
As for the work scope, the CDM Smith team will complete the PID as shown in Exhibit 3. The PID is a Caltrans required document for projects on the State Highway System that will allow the Central Avenue project to move forward to the PA&ED phase, and is expected to be completed in March 2019. The purpose of the PID is not to finalize outstanding issues such as the Webster Street/Central Avenue intersection but rather it is to achieve consensus on the purpose-and-need, scope and schedule of the project for future analyses and approvals that will occur in the PA&ED phase. That said, there is sufficient scope and budget to make significant progress on these issues with stakeholders so that the consultant team and City will be prepared to finalize these issues as part of the PA&ED phase.
The PID will identify existing information, initial assumptions, risks and constraints as well as alternatives to be considered. Since this PID is locally sponsored, the City will be looking for general agreement with Caltrans on purpose-and-need, scope, schedule, cost and the range of alternatives and their associated risks to be studied during the PA&ED phase. The PID also will look for conceptual approval with Caltrans to ensure that there are no known fatal flaws, all alternatives are constructible based on the available level of detail or to highlight any potential Caltrans design exceptions that may be needed.
City staff requests that the City Council award the contract to CDM Smith so that the City may initiate the PID effort (Exhibit 5). The subsequent phases - PA&ED and PS&E - will be defined more precisely as part of the PID effort. Once defined, City staff will come back to City Council to request amendment to the CDM Smith contract to approve the scope and budget of these subsequent phases. The PA&ED and PS&E are expected to begin in March 2019; the construction is expected to begin in May 2021.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The total expenditure for the PID effort is not to exceed $557,000. The total estimated cost for the PID is $184,000 to pay for Caltrans staff review and $372,928 for the CDM Smith team, which includes a five percent contingency totaling $17,758. City staff requests that the City Council commit the cost for the PID from the City’s CIP Budget for Fiscal Years 2017-19, which is funded by Measure B/BB for $407,000 and Developer Impact Fees for $150,000. The CDM Smith team is not guaranteed any of the contingency amounts, and its use will be at the sole discretion of City staff for work not originally anticipated. More monies will be needed to cover the consultant and Caltrans review costs for subsequent project approval, environmental review and design phases that are needed for construction. City staff is updating its cost estimates and funding sources to include the extra level of effort required during the pre-construction phases for projects on the State Highway System.
There is no impact to the General Fund.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
This action does not affect the Alameda Municipal Code. This Central Avenue concept included an extensive community based planning process that began in 1991 with the City’s General Plan and culminated with the City Council approval of the concept in February 2016 and with the Citywide Capital Improvement Program for Fiscal Years 2017 to 2019, which included $557,000 for pre-construction tasks on the Central Avenue project. The Central Avenue concept also is consistent with the following City documents:
• The City Council approved the City Design Element of the General Plan (1991) with policies maximizing access to the shoreline, which includes Central Avenue to “enhance the meeting of land and water.”
• The City Council approved the Transportation Element of the General Plan (2009), which lists Central Avenue as a transit priority street, a bicycle priority street and a truck route, in school and recreation zones and as an island arterial, and lists other priorities that are addressed in the Central Avenue concept such as multimodal, safety and environmental improvements and considering needs for individuals with disabilities.
• The City Council approved the Pedestrian Plan <http://alamedaca.gov/public-works-key-documents> (2009) that prioritized the Central Avenue improvements as medium-priority pedestrian projects.
• The City Council approved the Bicycle Plan Update <http://alamedaca.gov/sites/default/files/document-files/bikemasterplanupdateweb.pdf> (2010) that prioritized the Central Avenue bikeway project as a high-priority project.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15061(b)(3).
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the Acting City Manager to: (1) Execute a Cooperative Agreement with Caltrans in an Amount not to exceed $184,000 for Caltrans to review and approve the PID, which is required by Caltrans to determine the project’s scope, cost and schedule for the Central Avenue Safety Improvement Project and (2) Execute a contract with CDM Smith in the amount of $372,928 including contingency, for engineering, planning, and outreach services to prepare the PID.
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Ott, Director of Base Reuse and Transportation Planning
By,
Gail Payne,Senior Transportation Coordinator
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Edwin Gato, Acting Finance Director
Exhibits:
1. Caltrans Cooperative Agreement
2. CDM Smith Consultant Team Proposal Received on February 8, 2018
3. CDM Smith Final Work Scope
4. CDM Smith Budget
5. CDM Smith Contract