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Nate Kampman (Guest): We are really making an enormous amount of positive progress in the city with these infrastructure improvements. We have some great programs.

Bill Klaproth (Host): Meet Nate Kampman, City Engineer for the city of Cedar Rapids.

Nate: And I will say without hesitation, that there is a great team here at the city that is working on these projects and we are all very, very proud of what we’re doing, and we care very much about the work we’re doing.

Host: This is Inside Cedar Rapids, a monthly podcast that introduces you to the people, projects and programs of your local government. And on this episode, we go behind the scenes of the public works department and talk construction 101. Heh Nate, thanks for your time. Many people might wonder about all the work going on during the busy construction months, but some people might be surprised to learn that there’s a lot more to it than just roadwork. Tell us a little bit about the different types of construction projects that residents generally see every summer.

Nate: Absolutely. You hit it right on the head. Most of what people notice and see is the road construction work but there are a lot of other types of projects that we get into during construction season. Some of the more common ones, I’ll just go through a list of them here. One would be ADA work which is the Americans With Disabilities Act. We do a lot of work on our curb ramps that lead from our sidewalks to our street crossings. And people see a lot of that going on in the city of Cedar Rapids.

Another thing would be utility repairs. Things such as our sanitary sewer or water mains. Utilities that are underneath the roadway, also storm sewer. Sometimes we have emergency items that pop up that might be a problem with the utility. It could be something as simple as a large limb that fell down during a storm. We also do some bridge repair work and then there’s a lot of work that goes on inside the city right of way that’s actually private contractors working in the right of way. We issue in excess of 3000, what we call right of way excavation permits each year and that is for private work happening in the right of way. So, a new service going to a house for water or sanitary sewer or a private utility company that might be burying new lines in a right of way.

So, those are some examples of work besides just roadwork that we see every year.

Host: Yeah, that is – there’s always a lot going on. So many projects we see and as you explained, many we don’t see. So, let me ask you this. What exactly is a Capital Improvement Project? I hear that a lot. And how does the funding work differently than the local options sales tax?

Nate: Sure so, a capital improvement project really what that means is it is any project that maintaining or improving a city asset. And we have several different ways that we fund those projects and a good distinction to make here in the city of Cedar Rapids is we have our Paving for Progress Program, which is funded by the local option sales tax, so that’s a penny that goes towards the maintenance, construction of our streets, 100% of it goes towards that. And that generates about 18 million dollars a year.

The funds for Paving for Progress go specifically to our Paving for Progress Program which is data driven program strategic to improving the pavement surfaces. That being said, we still do a lot of roadwork in the city of Cedar Rapids that isn’t funded with the Paving for Progress or the local option sales tax. We also do work on state highways such as First Avenue through town, Allen’s Road and a lot of those projects are funded with state or federal grants and we use other local funding sources to provide the match for those projects.

So, the other major funding sources is that we use to fund road projects would be general obligation bonds and then state road use tax. And so a few examples of projects that are going on on the road or have gone on recently on the road that are not Paving for Progress projects are the work that is ongoing on Collins Road, on the northeast side of town is not Paving for Progress funded. The First Avenue work, that has been ongoing on the east side of town is not Paving for Progress funded. And some of the downtown work that has been going on where we have been doing our one way to two way conversions and also setting up for a quiet zone through the downtown area; that work also is not Paving for Progress.

So, it’s a good distinction to make. We really keep those local option sales tax dollars focused on our data driven strategic program for fixing streets only. But we still also pursue those other revenue sources and grant opportunities to also do street work.

Host: So, staying with roadwork, I’m sure your department received a lot of calls from people curious about how you pick which roads to fix. Can you share what that process is like?

Nate: So, the Paving for Progress Program has a very, I’ll call it prescriptive way of selecting streets. For the Paving for Progress Program, we take pavement data, pavement condition data that is actually gathered by the state of Iowa every two years and we use that data, we put together our Paving for Progress Program and to pick which streets we are working on. That being said, we aren’t always working on the worst streets. We are sometimes working on streets that are getting to the point where they are going to start falling apart and nee total reconstruction. So, we may be working on a street that doesn’t appear as bad as one next to it. So, that is the Paving for Progress Program.

Out other programs or our other projects really, it’s a variety of factors. We might be looking at traffic volumes. If we have traffic congestion in the area, we look at improvements to add efficiencies to the roadway and add capacity to the roadway network. Also, the underground infrastructure comes into play if we have utilities such as water main or sewer underneath the roadway that is at the end of its useful life where we are having a lot of collapses or water main breaks; those are other reasons that we would look at certain streets.

And the final thing I’ll mention is funding comes into play. There are many different grant programs that are available out there that we keep our eyes on and those are always targeted towards certain types of projects. It could be a roadway project, it could be a trail project, it could be a bridge project and there are always certain criteria tied to those grants that we have to meet in order to be awarded those. So, sometimes just the funding available – the funding that is out there and available is what drives that selection.

Host: So, funding and then you are mentioning pavement condition data. So, sometimes it’s very easy to see why you are fixing a road, it’s obvious; other times it’s not as obvious. Can you give us some background on why you might be working on certain roads that may not look like they need fixing?

Nate: Yeah, I touched on it a little bit. But one analogy that we like to use is to look at a roadway similar to how you look at your car. When you get a new vehicle, at some point in time, you have to put new tires on it, you have to change the oil and if you don’t do that, that car will deteriorate quickly and eventually you will need to replace it before you really would like to have to replace it. Whereas if you do the oil changes, take care of the tires and the brakes; you are going to extend the life of that car and be able to use it and keep it in good working condition for longer.

Roadways really are no different. There are maintenance treatments that when applied at the right time, will extend the life of that roadway after that. So, sometimes we will be working on a road that doesn’t appear to be as bad as a roadway nearby it even, but what we are doing is trying to extend the life of that roadway.

Host: Right and that analogy you gave of car maintenance, that makes sense. So we see the cones, we see the detour signs; but what about all the work you can’t see. There’s got to be an enormous amount of planning that takes place. So, what does the planning process look like as you start to think about a project?

Nate: Every year, we go through our budget process and put together a five year plan. The first part of that is really trying to plan for the funding and make sure that we are going to be able to proceed with the project. Also, during that planning process, we really look at what the project goals are to make sure that we’re addressing a need that is out there and are going to accomplish the goals of the project.

Once that is established, we move into more of a design phase. You start with a preliminary design which is conceptual, gets you up to the point where you know what you are going to build and how much it costs. Once we get to that point, you still really have a choice at that point if you are going to proceed with the project or not. But when we move forward with it, that’s where you get into things like private utility and public utility coordination. A lot of times ahead of projects, people will see utilities moving, digging in the right of way, we like to get those things taken care of as much as possible before we get into the project.

And then the next piece would be our property acquisition. So, with each project in the public right of way, we of course have private owners, private residences, citizens, businesses that are right adjacent to the project and we need to work with them to make sure we understand their needs and that they understand what’s going to happen during the project and then also, legally, we are required to acquire easements so that we can – if we need to get on their property to complete the construction or if we actually need to purchase property permanently for that construction to occur and for the project to occur.

I would say for our locally funded projects, it’s probably about a two year process usually before we even get up to construction once the planning is done. Sometimes it may be three years and when you get into grant funded projects, especially federally funded projects; that project development period before you even get to construction can be three to four years pretty easily. Just because there’s a lot of coordination with different federal and state agencies that you have to complete before you move forward with the project.

Host: Wow, so you are talking in years. So, is that how long a typical project takes from start to finish?

Nate: So, from start to finish, the design phase depending on where the funding is and the complexity of that would be I’d say two to four years and then when you get to construction; most of our projects we like to get done in one construction season but some of the larger, more complex projects such as our Collins Road project that is ongoing right now; can take multiple years. That particular one is a two year project.

So, from planning through completion of construction you are looking anywhere probably in that three to five year range.

Host: So, you’re talking years out, you’re already targeting roads for 2023 and 2024 even?

Nate: Absolutely. Absolutely. One other thing that I’d like to add to that is, is sometimes people see us close roads and for the construction piece of it and sometimes we have to keep them open. Many times if we can close a road, we prefer to do that because we can actually complete the construction much quicker but sometimes, we are not able to do that especially when we have businesses adjacent to the project that we need to provide access to throughout the project. That causes us to have to stage the project in multiple phases which at times, can add to the complexity and of course add to the timeline during construction.

Host: Right so, let me ask you this. You are driving along; you see the barricades place along a roadway; but the crews are only working in a small section of the project way away from where the barricades start. What are some of the reasons you might see the barricades set up farther away than where the work is taking place?

Nate: So, the first two reasons one is we have to give advanced warning when you are getting into a construction area and give people an opportunity to turn away from it and not become trapped in the construction zone. So, that is one of the reasons for that advanced warning. The other is safety for the workers and for the drivers. We like to make sure that there’s plenty of room, plenty of clearance for the contractors to do the work that they need to do and make sure that we are not having traffic interact with their operation.

The other thing is that a lot of the work that we do with streets is what we would call linear work so, you start with the underground utilities and you start in one location and you dig a hole and start laying pipes say for sanitary sewer and you work from one side of the project to the other which might cause it to look like you are only working in one certain area. But really, that’s a rolling operation that is transitioning down the length of the project.

Host: All right. So, speaking of the length of a project, they can be really long and as they get it seems like they are completed; it moves you like yes, this section is finally done and then a couple of weeks later they are back at that same section again and it is like I thought they were done with this. Why are they back again. So, what are some of the reasons people might see crews returning to a certain area on the project?

Nate: Yeah, I can relate to that frustration. There’s several reasons for that. And probably the most common one is we try and keep – when we are staging a project, we try and keep as many lanes open to traffic as we can to keep traffic moving through the construction zone. I’m sure people have seen this recently on Collins Road because we have done this frequently up there. So, we may dig up and complete underground infrastructure on half of the road or in one area of the project and then we need to move over and complete the underground infrastructure in another area so we will put what we call temporary pavement down for the traffic to move on.

And that’s frequently used either for utility construction, for different staging to move traffic away from the different work areas and sometimes we will use it over the winter months so that we can open the roadway up to traffic over the winter and then pick up where we left off in the spring. And that temporary pavement is exactly that. It’s temporary so it comes out still with the construction project and then the work continues before the permanent pavement is replaced.

So, that’s one of the reasons, probably the most common reason that you would see that.

Host: Well Nate, if you could wrap this up for us. What’s one final thought you’d like to leave the residents of CR with?

Nate: I guess I would say that we know that the construction process can be frustrating and disruptive for people. But we just ask that you have patience with it, you slow down through the work zones, make sure you are safe, make sure the worker in there are safe. We are really making an enormous amount of positive progress in the city with these infrastructure improvements. We have some great programs and I will say without hesitation that there is a great team here at the city that is working on these projects and we are all very, very proud of what we’re doing, and we care very much about the work we are doing.

Host: Okay Nate, thanks so much for your time. We really appreciate it and thanks for the behind the scenes tour of the Public Works Department. If you’d like to learn more please visit www.cirtyofcr.com/pavingforprogress, that’s www.cityofcr.com/pavingforprogress. And if you liked what you’ve heard please share this on your social channels and be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out the full library at www.cityofcr.com/podcasts. This is Inside Cedar Rapids. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.