HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-09-17 TranscriptionSeptember 17, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session
Council Present: Champion, Dickens, Dobyns, Hayek, Mims, Payne, Throgmorton
Staff Present: Markus, Fruin, Dilkes, Karr, Davidson, Fosse, Knoche, Bockenstedt,
O'Brien, Rummel, Moran, Clow, Bentley
Others Present: Bramel (UISG)
Agenda Items•
Page 1
Hayek/ I want to welcome everyone to City Hall. We have a packed work session here so let's
go ahead and get started. The first bullet point is questions from Council regarding
agenda items.
ITEM 4d(1) CITY STREET FINANCIAL REPORT - APPROVING THE CITY
STREET FINANCIAL REPORT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 309
2013.
ITEM 4e(3) OFFER RE CITY -OWNED LAND NORTH OF COURT STREET
TRANSPORTATION CENTER - 1) APPROVING THE COMPETITIVE
CRITERIA AND PROCEDURES FOR DISPOSITION OF CERTAIN PROPERTY
LOCATED WITHIN THE CITY - UNIVERSITY PROJECT I URBAN RENEWAL
AREA; 2) DETERMINING THAT THE OFFER SUBMITTED BY
HIERONYMUS SQUARE ASSOCIATES, L.L.C. SATISFIES THE OFFERING
REQUIREMENTS AND DECLARING THE INTENT OF THE CITY TO ENTER
INTO AN AGREEMENT FOR THE SALE OF LAND FOR PRIVATE
REDEVELOPMENT WITH HIERONYMUS SQUARE ASSOCIATES, L.L.C. IN
THE EVENT THAT NO COMPETING PROPOSALS ARE SUBMITTED; AND 3)
SOLICITING COMPETING PROPOSALS.
Throgmorton/ Matt, I ... I'd like to have two items pulled from the Consent Calendar, if it's
agreeable to the rest of the... Council. Uh, item 4d(1), which affects Dennis, uh, that's
the, uh, the resolution approving annual st ... the annual street financial report (noises on
mic) and I was hoping that Dennis, during the formal meeting, could briefly summarize
the substance of that report, especially focusing on what the major sources of revenue are
(noises on mic) and what the money's being spent for. So, you know... help... help us
understand what the report's really telling us. Okay? And the other one is, uh, item
4e(3), uh, the offer by Hieronymus Square Associates for city -owned land north of Court
Street. I wonder if Jeff or some other staff member could briefly explain what's... what
that's all about. I mean, you know, I saw the article in the Gazette and so on, but ...it'd
be helpful for the public as well as us probably to, uh, have a summary of that. So that
...that's my suggestion.
Markus/ We can do that.
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Hayek/ So we'll ... why don't we ... why don't you make the motion then to pull those, uh, we'll
pass the, uh, Consent Calendar as amended.
Dilkes/ You ... you don't need a motion. You... any... any Council Member can remove `em.
Hayek/ No, no, no! I mean...
Dilkes/ Oh to (both talking)
Hayek/ I ... I'm just saying to ... (both talking)
Dilkes/ Oh I got ya! To move `em to pass it.
Hayek/ Yeah.
Dilkes/ Yeah, okay.
Hayek/ And then we can take up those two items...
Throgmorton/ Okay!
Hayek/ ...right after we pass Consent.
Throgmorton/ Yeah (mumbled) you know, it's just...
Hayek/ Right.
Throgmorton/ ...information.
Hayek/ Okay.
ITEM 4d(2) WEST SIDE LEVEE - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR SIGN AND
THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AGREEMENTS BETWEEN MIDAMERICAN
ENERGY COMPANY AND THE CITY OF IOWA CITY FOR THE
RELOCATION OF UTILITIES NECESSARY TO ACCOMMODATE THE WEST
SIDE LEVEE PROJECT.
Payne/ And ... Eleanor, I sent you an email about 4d(2) and ... I didn't see a response back. I
didn't ... maybe I didn't have time to look.
Dilkes/ Oh, I ... I think ... I said yes I agree.
Payne/ Okay!
Dilkes/ That you don't have a conflict.
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Payne/ Okay! Great! So, you want me ... should I say that at the meeting, I mean ... okay.
Dilkes/ You don't have to.
Payne/ Okay.
Hayek/ Okay.
ITEM 4f(5) Karen Fox: Compeer
Throgmorton/ Uh, Item 4f(5). It's the email about submitting a local funding grant request too
late. Uh, I ... I wonder if it's possible for that application to still be considered. I ... I don't
know what the actual process is. Uh, so ... seemed like there was a pretty reasonable
explanation but...
Dobyns/ Which one is this, Jim? (several talking)
Throgmorton/ Four ... 4f(5). It's an email from Karen Fox about submitting a local funding grant
request too late and it ... the implications for the program she runs. So...
Markus/ Jeff, can you respond to that?
Davidson/ I cannot intelligently respond to it but I can try and contact Tracy. I assume since she
advised the person to contact you, that was with the intent that if you asked for special
consideration that staff would then give that special consider.
Throgmorton/ That's what I was thinking.
Davidson/ I will confirm that with Tracy, but that would be my understanding.
Throgmorton/ Because of the circumstances involved in ... in the application being submitted too
late.
Hayek/ Why don't you do this ... uh, it ... when you confirm with Tracy if, maybe you could just
shoot a memo back to the Council so we know what the local, uh, funding grant process
was. Maybe we can just take it up at our next meeting (both talking)
Davidson/ ... get more detail. I mean, I (both talking) I can try and get that by the formal
meeting if you want to act on it this evening or ... what's your preference?
Dobyns/ Well...
Markus/ Let us try to ... let us try to get the information and if we can't then we can do it the
opposite way.
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Throgmorton/ Okay.
Dobyns/ ...might suggest if we're going to do anything we may want to do it quickly. I'm just
trying to think if there's a funding cycle here. Delaying it would essentially kill it. I
would think.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, I think that's probably true but I don't know.
Davidson/ I'll see what I can find out before the formal meeting, and if I'm able to get, uh, a
coherent answer, maybe you can just pull that one off too when you pull the other items
off and we can consider it separately.
Markus/ And ... and, Jeff, the Aid ... this is Aid to Agencies. So ... by granting, if...if the Council
decided to do this, would it then, I mean, there's a limited amount of money so that it's
just going to come out of some other allocation that you've already made.
Davidson/ I'll try and get the full scoop on that before the formal (several talking)
Champion/ ...allegations have already been made. It was in the minutes and ... (several talking)
Hayek/ I'd be kind of reluctant to do something on the fly this evening.
Champion/ I'm not going to do it!
Throgmorton/ Yeah.
Champion/ And I love that program! But I'm ... I'm not going to do that.
Davidson/ So would you rather have the memo later and...
Markus/ That's fine.
Dobyns/ Also we've already approved the funding for (several talking) Oh, yeah (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Yeah, I ... I didn't realize that. I couldn't remember that (both talking)
Dobyns/ ...cow's out of the barn.
Hayek/ So how `bout a memo before our next meeting?
Davidson/ Sounds good!
Hayek/ And then we can take it up.
Davidson/ Sounds good. Thanks.
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Hayek/ Thank you, Jeff!
Champion/ You know, we used to leave some reserve in that money, in case something came up.
It might be a good idea to start thinking about doing that again. Like if an emergency
comes up for somebody.
Hayek/ There may be something there now.
ITEM 4f(6) Cecilia Norris: Need for an adult crossing guard at Hoover School [Staff
response included]
Payne/ Um, item 4f(6) on the agenda says need for an adult crossing guard at Hoover School.
Karr/ That was a mistake on our part (several talking) corrected (both talking) revisions.
Payne/ Okay. Okay! Thank you.
Hayek/ Other items?
ITEM 9. PARKING LOT HOURS - AMENDING TITLE 9, MOTOR VEHICLES
AND TRAFFIC, CHAPTER 5, PARKING METER ZONES AND
PARKING LOTS, SECTION 4, USE OF PARKING LOTS: TO ASSIGN
THE CITY MANAGER, OR DESIGNEE, THE RESPONSIBILITY AND
AUTHORITY TO SET THE DAYS AND TIMES FOR WHICH A FEE
MAY BE CHARGED, AS WELL AS THE LENGTH OF TIME A
VEHICLE MAY BE PARKED, IN CITY LOTS. (PASS AND ADOPT)
ITEM 10. PERSONAL PROPERTY IN THE DOWNTOWN - AMENDING TITLE 8,
ENTITLED "POLICE REGULATIONS," CHAPTER 5, ENTITLED
"MISCELLANEOUS OFFENSES," TO LIMIT STORING PERSONAL
PROPERTY ON RIGHT OF WAY, TO PROHIBIT SOLICITING BY
PARKING METERS AND AT CITY PLAZA ENTRANCES, TO
PROHIBIT LYING ON ELEVATED PLANTERS, TO PROHIBIT LYING
ON BENCHES DURING CERTAIN HOURS, AND TO RESTRICT USING
ELECTRICAL OUTLETS. (PASS AND ADOPT)
Throgmorton/ Matt, maybe I should mention that ... that you've all been given a handout
concerning amendments to ... what is it item 9...10?
Karr/ Ten?
Throgmorton/ Item #10, the uh ... uh ... the ped mall ordinance. And ... and what I've tried to do is
indicate some amendments that I would propose that are consistent with what I suggested
last time, but ... only at the non - substantive level, and then (noises on mic) uh ... and then
there are a couple motions I would like to make (noises on mic) assuming that, uh,
Council adopts the ordinance. I would like to make those motions immediately after
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Council adopts the ordinance. This is what I understand from talking with Eleanor is the
procedure I should follow.
Dilkes/ Yeah, I ... I've told Jim that I ... that amendments to the whereas clauses would not re
...would not require you to back up on your readings.
Payne/ I don't have a copy.
Champion/ It was in your...
Karr/ It's in your packet.
Hayek/ Yeah (several talking)
Payne/ It's in this thing?
Markus/ The late payment.
Mims/ The late packet. (mumbled)
Payne/ It wasn't in here.
Karr/ Envelope? No it's not an electronic packet. It was a hard copy in your envelope. Did you
have an envelope?
Payne/ Yeah, but I looked in there and didn't see it in there.
Markus/ It's right behind (mumbled)
Payne/ Huh?
Markus / Right behind (mumbled) (noises on mic)
Throgmorton/So ... so just to be clear, I ... I, with regard to the amendments (several talking)
Markus/ Here, take mine.
Throgmorton/ ...what I'm trying to do is proposed non - substantive amendments that were
discussed some ... most of which were discussed last time, and I sense that the Council
would be agreeable to those non - substantive amendments.
Dobyns/ I took a look at `em and I'd be agreeable (both talking)
Throgmorton/ With regard to the motions on the second page, those are, uh ... items that I'd, uh,
introduced last time, but I understood they were substantive amendments and hence
would require us to start over, if we considered them as amendments. So what I'm...
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what I'm proposing to do tonight is ... make a motion, make a couple motions, after the
ordinance gets adopted, presuming it is adopted. So I'm not ... not trying to introduce, not
trying to flim -flam you or anything like that. This is stuff we've gone over in, uh, to a
degree last time.
Hayek/ And, Jim, it looks like your also suggesting a number of deletions and changes to the
...the current whereas lines. I just haven't (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Right. Some of them I ... I passed this by Eleanor and she's going to, I hope, help
us briefly go through that, because some of `em I think she's going to tell me are actually
substantive amendments. No? Go ahead!
Dilkes/ No. I don't think ... what the law requires you to do is to give three readings to the
ordinance that you're going to adopt. The... the... the ordinance, the whereas clauses do
not change the regulation. They do not ... etc., so as ... in my view, as long as you have
three times voted to pass the proposed amendments, then you're okay with respect to the
three ordinances. So that's why my conclusion is if you change the whereas clauses it
wouldn't be substantive, but I did... what... what I was telling you, Jim, is that ... I ... I have
another concern about deleting whereas clauses that explain the reasons for ordinance
amendments, when you're not deleting the ordinance amendment itself. Because the
reason you put your whereas clauses in is to explain why you're passing a certain law,
and if you... it doesn't make sense to pass the law and take the reasons for it out.
Throgmorton/ So... so there might be particular elements at the bottom of the first page that I
would delete. I'd scratch through `em (laughs) We didn't have time to do this, you
know, before the meeting, uh, so I ... I'm totally open to doing that, and want to consult
with Eleanor about the ... the (both talking)
Dobyns/ So, Eleanor, is there a legal concern, I mean, let's say that this was consented
(mumbled) contested in court.
Dilkes/ Uh huh.
Dobyns/ Are the whereases, uh, substantive... I'm trying to figure out, you could be advising us
from an attorney, uh, point of view, which is one thing, or you could be advising us as a
sort of a wordsmith.
Dilkes/ No, that comes as advice as ... in my role as City Attorney.
Dobyns/ Okay, because of (both talking)
Dilkes/ Whereas clauses in this particular instance were crafted quite carefully after review of the
case law, which allows for regulation in this area.
Dobyns/ So in cases contested in (both talking)
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Dilkes/ I would like an ordinance that has all the reasons up front, in the whereas clauses (both
talking)
Dobyns/ ... okay. All right. Thank you. But the addition of the whereases... is... okay?
Dilkes/ My only concern with the addition is the ... is the first one which ... which talks about, um,
the status of being homeless and this ordinance is directed at behavior, not the status of
being homeless, and I think that first whereas clause confuses that, and would (several
talking) could be problematic in the defense of it.
Dobyns/ Jim.
Dilkes/ So I would not include that.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, I ... I would dispute that, but ... but more importantly, I ... I would be pleased
if somebody offered an amendment to the amendment, and I could vote against the
amendment to the amendment (laughs) and then we could pass, uh ... uh, the ... the main
amendment... which is what ... what I'd be proposing here.
Dobyns/ I feel better if you just went along, I mean... that... that's confusing me. (laughs) I'm
easily confused!
Throgmorton/ Well, um...
Dobyns/ But I mean ... if ... I guess if you're not ... cause I would (noises on mic) to agree with
what Eleanor just said and ... you know, this something that you put forth, but then if you
put forth (mumbled) vote for it yourself, that's kind of (mumbled)
Throgmorton/ Yeah, well here's... here's how I'd dispute Eleanor in this particular instance. Uh,
that particular whereas clause does not say homelessness is a ... is a problem in itself.
And it's not saying that the ordinance addresses homeless people. It is saying that there
are problems associated with homelessness and transience, such as mental illness, drug
addiction, and alcoholism. So it's... problems associated with those two things, which I
think ... have been discussed quite thoroughly in our previous two meetings.
Dobyns/ With all due respect, kind of going uphill if you're recommending, you know,
wordsmithing with our City Attorney, I mean...
Champion/ You know, we can...
Dilkes/ I ... I think the difference is, Jim, you're talking about your values and I think that's how
you refer to them. But the whereas clauses are not there to express values. They're there
to express the reasons why you're passing the legislation that you are.
Champion/ To ease everybody's minds. I think we can move on cause I do plan on making an
amendment.
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Dobyns/ Okay.
Hayek/ (both talking) ...let's do this ... we ... we want to get through the (both talking)
Champion/ Yeah, we've got a lot to do!
Hayek/ ...Gateway stuff. Um ... but I'm ... I'm glad we at least had this much discussion on this,
cause we can think about it going forward. I mean, these are hot off the press and ... and,
but it gives us some more context as we go into the formal and ... we'll take it up tonight.
Is that okay?
Throgmorton/ Sure!
Council Appointments:
Hayek/ Okay, next item is Council appointments.
Champion/ (mumbled)
Hayek/ Okay. Which brings us to the Gateway project! And I had ... I asked, uh, Marian's office
to provide hard copies of what's on our iPads. Um, just for ease of moving around, use
`em or not, but I thought that'd be helpful (several talking)
Gateway Project Discussion:
Fosse/ Alrighty! Well, good evening! I'm Rick Fosse, Iowa City's Public Works Director, and
we are here for the first of two scheduled meetings on the Gateway project. And uh,
joining me tonight are, uh, Ron Knoche, our City Engineer, and Melissa Clow, our
Special Projects Engineer, as well as a portion of our design team from HNTB, out of
Kansas City, Missouri. Uh, Mark Pierson is here. He's heading up that team and he'll
introduce his ... his team members in just a moment when I turn the podium over to him,
but I do want to point out that ... that Mark is an Iowa grad. He lived for two years on
Dubuque Street. His parents call Iowa City home, so he has a good understanding of the
setting of the corridor and ... and our community. And also point out that ... that three of
our team members here tonight with HNTB, uh, were Jim's students in college. So we
have a very well- educated team here ... to work with. Um ... so our objective tonight,
simply to share information, uh, present options, and answer questions, all to frame up
the ... the decisions on design parameters that will come at...at a subsequent meeting.
And uh, those decisions where we're looking for direction, there are three of those,
and ... and just to summarize, one is what ... what's the targeted, uh, protection level for
Dubuque Street. The second one is what is the bridge type that you would like to see,
and the third is what are your backwater reduction goals for that bridge. That is how high
should that bridge go, and that's... that's certainly one that there's a balancing act there
because we are ... we have interests in two ... two different neighborhoods that are counter
to each other. One would like to keep the bridge as low as possible, and the
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corresponding intersection as low as possible. The other ... the other neighborhoods
upstream would like to see it high as possible to reduce backwater to the maximum
extent. So we're going to need to strike a balance there. Now we've already shared a
good deal of information with you in the last two information packets to allow you to
prime yourself as much as you'd like for this project. Uh, tonight's presentation is going
to review and uh, build on that information, and then at our next meeting on October 1St,
scheduled for October 1St, we'll answer additional questions and then begin to address
some of those decisions on design parameters. So with that introduction, let me turn it
over to Mark Pierson and it's all yours!
Pierson/ Thanks, Rick. So, with me this evening, um, in no particular order we have John
Blancett, who is a Hydraulics Engineer. We have Kyle Kroner who is a University grad,
uh, was our NEPA lead. Steve Wells, also an Iowa grad, is our Project Principle; uh,
Natalie McCombs is one of our Bridge Engineers and a Deck Arch Bridge expert, in case
you have any questions regarding that; uh, Matt Spencer has led all of our roadway work.
Uh, we're going to try to plow through three years worth of study in as quick as time as
possible (laughter) so I know you got ... you're going to have plenty of questions. I'd ask
that we try to get through everything first and then if we can, address your questions,
because I think many of the questions you may have, we will address at some point, uh,
during the course of the presentation, but obviously if you do have a question and you
want to ask, you are free to ask that! So with that, urn ... Rick touched on it a little bit, but
our project goals really involve, um, improving the reliability of Dubuque Street and the
availability of Park Road and Park Road bridge. Uh, as he mentioned, we want to do
what we can to reduce backwater that is created by the existing bridge, by building a new
bridge that is a little bit higher up and a little bit wider. Uh, there are infrastructure
improvements which we'll touch on later that need to happen in this project corridor,
regardless of decisions you make regarding the Gateway, and we'll touch on those. Um,
one of the main goals that we had with this project is to better serve bicyclists,
pedestrians, and not up there, but also maintain the existing transit connections, if not
make them better than what are out there today, and also with all of this, we've been
working from Project ... with Project Green. Uh, City staff has been working with Project
Green from before we were ever awarded this project, and have worked with folks, Jim
Maynard in particular with Project Green, throughout this project to make sure that we
don't disrupt the natural beauty, the views of the park, the views of Hancher, of campus
to the south that you have currently. We want to work within that context and keep that
or make it better. Rick, do you want to talk about funding sources and a little bit of
housekeeping quick?
Fosse/ Sure! Sure! Um, our funding for this project, uh, we have about $10.5 million in ... in
federal money on this. We have $3 million from the EDA. Uh, we have $1.5 million, uh,
from the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, THUD is the acronym for
that, and then from the ... the Surface Transportation Program, or STP, uh, that's $6
million. So that totals up to ... to $10.5 or roughly 26% of...of the project estimate. Our
local option sales tax contribution to this project would be at $25.8 million. Our ... our,
uh, ultimate take on the local option sales tax was higher than projected, and we used less
than projected for the waste water project, so we have a fairly sizeable chunk available to
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us here for this project, which leaves approximately $3.7 million, plus or minus
depending on the ... the bridge option that we chose, that we would fund with GO Bonds.
Now I also think... Connie?
Champion/ What did we do with the money (mumbled) use that levee on Taft Speedway?
Fosse/ That has already gone to the south wastewater treatment plant.
Champion/ Oh, okay!
Fosse/ And that ... that enabled us to move some of that local options sales tax here (both talking)
Champion/ Okay, that's fine. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't lost! (laughter)
Fosse/ No!
Throgmorton/ What ... what was the total?
Fosse/ The total was $40 million, and ... and uh, another thing that I want to point out here is
that ... in ... in the capital program we have three separate projects that we intend to
package together and bid and build as one large project. So we have the Gateway project
at $40 million, and that's what we just talked about that. That's our flood mitigation
project. We have the Park Road third lane improvements which pre -dates the flood.
That was in our capital program prior to that. Um, which improves Park Road from the
Lower City Park entrance up through Riverside Drive. That's $1.44 million, and then we
also have the north river corridor trunk sewer, which goes underneath of all this, at $4.4
million. So I want to point this out because when you hear us talk about cost estimates,
you may hear three different numbers and they're all correct, depending on which bundle
of projects -- $40 million could be $41.44 which is ... is the Gateway and Park Road, or it
could be $45.8, which includes the sewer here. So tonight's discussion is going to focus
on Gateway and the Park Road third lane lumped together because that's what was
addressed in the ... in the EA and that's really what ... what we took a look at this evening.
So, Mark!
Pierson/ So, up on the screen we have ... a schedule, uh, the original schedule was five years. The
NEPA process was going to take, we hoped, approximately two years, though a colleague
of mine at Iowa DOT when I told her about this project looked at me and said, hm, this
looks like an EA. That's a good three years. So we're a little bit ahead of that. It'll be
three years in December that we've been studying this project. Um, where we're at today
is we're basically done with the NEPA process and the Section 106 process, with ... which
covers historic properties, uh, resources such as parks, um, archeological sites, if there are
any in the corridor, and what we're waiting on right now is the decision from Federal
Highway as to whether or not we would receive what's called a "finding of no significant
impact." Basically it is Federal Highway's blessing for the project to proceed on into
design. And that they don't see any significant impacts associated with the project.
That's not to say that there aren't some impacts associated with it, and we'll talk about
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those tonight, but nothing that they dede ... deem significant that would have to elevate the
project to a ... a more stringent level of scrutiny. Um ... when we do get the FONSI from
Federal Highway, and you make the decisions that we'll be talking about this evening
and ... and will discuss further at a later Council meeting, then that gives us the green light
to proceed into design. That will give us the chance to really fine -tune some of the
parameters that we're going to talk about this evening and find that sweet spot that's
really what we're looking for in terms of elevations of the roadway and the bridge,
backwater reduction caused by a new bridge, um, and the amenities that go with that and
a lot of the design details that a lot of folks have had questions about that we just haven't
had a chance to get into the design process to have that give and take, and discuss and get
into that level of detail. So, following design, which will take approximately 12 to 15
months, then construction is scheduled to last for two construction seasons or two years.
Uh, we just touched on the different stages. We're still in the planning and NEPA phase.
As I mentioned, design when we do get started will take approximately 12 to 15 months.
That includes some right -of -way work, uh, and negotiations on any right -of -way, and
then we're currently scheduled to be constructed in 2015 and... and completion in 2016.
For those of you not familiar with NEPA, it is a federal process, uh, that was established
in 1969 under the Nixon administration. It stands for the National Environmental Policy
Act. The reason we're going through the NEPA process as part of the Gateway project is
because there's a desire to access federal funds, and in fact have already had federal
funds, uh, made available for the project. Um, different federal agencies have different
levels of NEPA that they follow. Uh, we were going to follow it because of the grant
from the Economic Development Administration, but early on, uh, because of other
monies that were coming in, Federal Highway got involved because the money gets
distributed through the Iowa DOT, and before we got started on the project we reached
agreement that we would follow the Federal Highway Administration's process because
it's more stringent and related to transportation projects, whereas Economic Development
Administration's is not quite as stringent and doesn't usually deal with transportation
projects. And so you know that we're following what's called an `environmental
assessment;' that's one of three different types of NEPA processes to follow. The
environmental impact statement is much more stringent, often, uh, for projects that have a
greater deal of controversy or high impacts of whatever that might be — social, natural —
whatever it might be. Categorical exclusions are usually reserved for projects that an
agency is maybe working with an existing right -of -way and they're not getting outside of
the right -of -way with any kind of significant impacts or impacts at all. Uh, as I
mentioned this project's been going on for nearly three years and we've done quite a bit
of work. There's a checklist of the different things that we've been doing. Really all
that's left at this stage is to get the official federal approval so that we can, uh, move on
into design. Uh, throughout this process we've been talking with stakeholders. We've
had a number of public meetings, which I'll talk about in a little bit. We've had, staff has
had numerous meetings, um, with folks. We intend to keep talking with folks throughout
the design process. The public involvement, the communication doesn't stop with
NEPA. It goes all the way through design and construction. We touched about, uh ... this
a little bit but NEPA establishes a purpose and need, which is really why are you doing
the project, and so we've covered why we're doing the project. There's a desire to make
Dubuque Street more available, less prone to closures both for localized rain events. Any
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time there's a thunderstorm and it dumps more than an inch of rain an hour, Dubuque
Street's prone to have some lane closures. We're doing it because of flooding related to
releases from the reservoir. Uh, we want to make ... we want to minimize the backwater
that's created by the Park Road bridge. A new bridge, any bridge that we're talking
about this evening at any of the elevations will minimize backwater from the 14- inches
that's created currently by the existing bridge. And, we want to address the, uh, the
infrastructure improvements that are needed, regardless of this project for Dubuque Street
and Park Road. The process that we followed, uh, is really focused on community input
and ... and engagement, but we started with a whole universe of alternatives that we'll
kind of go through here in just a minute, and as we go through and we get feedback and
we do some study, we start to narrow it down as to what we think makes sense, and those
are the reasonable alternatives. Those get a little bit more refinement and we do some
conceptual studies, some conceptual engineering. We assess the impacts related to that
and from that is refer ... what we refer to as a `preferred alternative.' That's the
alternative that we think makes the most sense, given the project purpose and need. In
this case it's also what we would call the worst -case alternative in terms of impacts. Now
one reason that we did that and staff made a choice for us to go ahead with that, is
because it's much easier to have a bigger footprint and then work in during the design
process to make things less impactful than it is to start small and work your way out and
create more impacts. Federal Highway, the DOT, the resource agencies are much more
favorable if you clear a little bit wider footprint to give yourself some room to work, and
then if you're able to narrow it in during design, that's better than having to reopen
processes, reopen additional reviews, if you want to expand outside of that, what they call
a footprint. Some of the initial alternatives that we looked at were on Dubuque Street.
We also looked at alternatives that were off of Dubuque Street. So, the spaghetti strands
that you see up there are some ideas that we had originally. Involved going along Taft
Speedway for a distance and then you could see different potential crossings in the Iowa
River upstream, either up by the Peninsula neighborhood and /or going through Lower
City Park and then connecting into Park Road that way. We also looked at the potential
of making improvements on First Avenue and Highway 6 coming in from Coralville. We
also looked at Dodge /Governor, um ... looked at Foster Road and Prairie du Chien. For
any number of reasons, it was much easier to stay on the existing alignment. And that's
what we decided to do moving forward. Um, when ... any time you get into impacts on
parks, that involves a much greater degree of federal scrutiny. And also we didn't want
to have to bisect the park. The problems with bridge crossings there are a little bit
problematic. It was easier to stay on the existing alignment. Some of the bridges, we
looked at a variety of different bridge types. Some of those you'll see more detail about
this evening, but really the three that we looked at are what's called a cable - stayed. So
those are usually complex bridges that you would see on like the Mississippi River. I
think the closest one... there's... there's... they're up and down the Mississippi, but the
closest one, I believe, is in Burlington. Uh, a girder bridge is kind of the standard DOT -
type bridge, if you will. There's a few of those in town, up and down the river. I think
the closest one is probably one of the Burlington Street bridges. Um, the other ... the one
on the bottom is called an open - spandrel deck arch. That's a fancy word for the Iowa
Avenue bridge. That would be what it's most similar to. We looked at those three types
and um, as we moved through the process, we decided to focus our alignment on
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Dubuque Street and Park Road, pretty much following existing alignment, but I will, as I
pop these on the screen you'll be able to see this a little bit. One of the things we did do
was make a conscious decision to pull the Dubuque Street alignment away as much as we
could. It's pretty narrow through there with the river, but we moved it a ... to the ... to the
west, away from residential properties up and down the corridor. Uh, it might be as little
as two or three feet. It might be as much as 10 or 15 feet, but we made a conscious
decision to ... to move away from the homes and impact some of the park space more, and
the reason we did that is because a lot of the park space along the southbound lanes of
Dubuque Street are fairly passive open space, that if you change the grade of the slope
you're really not impacting facilities, whether it's a playground or the skate board park or
things like that. On Park Road we made a decision to move the bridge south of the
existing bridge. Uh, what that allowed us to do would be in the future to line the piers of
the bridge up with the channel so that you would have, uh, less disturbance from the, uh,
the channel hitting... hitting the piers like they do now (mumbled) little bit of a ... a skew
currently, and it creates more backwater. This would allow us to be more efficient
hydraulically. It also, uh, gives us room to work, to construct the new bridge.
(mumbled) little bit to the south, um, and it allows us to tie it back in to Park Road fairly
simple and keep the existing entrance to Lower City Park pretty much where it is today.
As I mentioned earlier, bicycle and pedestrian connections were very important. We
wanted to enhance what's there. So it involves the ... the blue lines are an 8 -foot sidewalk
that would follow the northbound lanes of Dubuque Street. Uh, it would improve the
Iowa River Trail so that you have a 10 -foot multi -use path along the southbound lanes.
We created a ... both at -grade crossings by Lower City Park and Hancher, as well as a
below - grade, because we're making a longer bridge. That gives us room to actually put
the bike crossing underneath the bridge, as well, and have a path down there so that folks
didn't have to cross Park Road if they didn't want to, to get from University property
over to City Park. It also involved extending, uh, sidewalks to both sides of Dubuque or
uh, to Park Road, excuse me. We also wanted to make sure that we maintained access to
everybody who currently has access to Dubuque Street and Park Road. So to maintain
existing driveway access. Now I will point out that there is one driveway that is missing
from this exhibit, and it's the first driveway immediately north of Kimball Road. It may
be familiar to some of you.
Hayek/ My grandparent's old place! (laughter) (mumbled) don't use it, I don't think. It's there!
Pierson/ They contacted staff and said please keep that, so it's not on the screen but when we're
in design we'll make sure that we keep access there. Urn ... little bit more about the pref
...what we call the preferred alternative, and again, this is ... this is NEPA definition.
This is ... the alternative that you want to carry forward into design. Okay? Urn ... the
plan is to elevate the existing roadways on Dubuque Street and Park Road, and the
bridge, to one foot above the 500 -year flood plain, to improve the bicycle and pedestrian
trail connections, uh, to whatever type of bridge we do we want to create a little bit
bigger bridge, both in terms of the widths, so that there would be five travel lanes and 10-
foot multi -use paths on either side, and it would be a longer bridge. I think the current
bridge is around 350 feet. The bridge that we're looking at would be closer to 400 feet.
So it stretches it a little bit further to the west and that's where we gain that opportunity to
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provide bike /ped amenities underneath. Uh, and it would be located, as I said, south of
the existing bridge. Those are common features to whatever bridge type we would look
at. The one that moved forward through the NEPA process and you see in the
environmental assessment document is a girder bridge. It's probably your most cost -
effective bridge, and that was a conscious decision to choose that type because of the
costs associated with it. Um, as I mentioned located south of the existing bridge. We did
want to make sure we had fewer piers in the water so we could help reduce the current
backwater that's there with the existing bridge and that would provide for some longer
spans, as well. Those are just different types of girder bridges, um, examples that ... so
you have a sense when we're talking about a girder bridge. Uh, real quick I wanted to
walk through some before and afters, cause I know it's kind of tough to mentally picture
what the preferred alternative might look like. So we've taken our best shot. What we
did was the terrain models that the roadway and bridge designers built, we superimposed
basically and sketched it up so you can see pavement and sidewalks and everything else.
So here's an example (both talking)
Throgmorton/ I'm sorry! Could I ask you a question about something you said just a ... a minute
or so ago...
Pierson/ Uh huh!
Throgmorton/ ...I want to make sure I'm understanding. Uh, you said the preferred alternative is
what will move forward in the design process.
Pierson/ From a Federal Highway perspective. Now we'll get into more of that because the
preferred alternative is what gets ... what Federal Highway would give their blessing to.
After that, you've got some leeway about what you might chose to do...
Throgmorton/ That's what I need you to be clear about.
Pierson/ ...to implement, right, and we'll get into that in more detail as well, but thank you for
helping me clarify that. So here's an example of, uh, the current intersection at Foster
Road looking south on Dubuque Street, in the vicinity of Cliff Apartments and
Mayflower. So here's current ... and this is what it might look like when we're done. So
you can see the difference in elevation.
Payne/ Flip back and forth a little bit. Okay.
Pierson/ Yep! We'll ... so ... and I've got more of these. So I'll just kind of breeze through `em,
but if there's one you want to come back and look at, I'm happy to go back and forth
and ... and we can look at those. Here's, uh, looking south on Dubuque Street in the
vicinity of Cliff Apartments currently (noises on mic) and ... when we're done. Here's at
Mayflower. Oops, wrong way! Sorry! (laughter) So ... before ... after. Now this is the
preferred alternative elevations. This is one foot above the 500 -year flood plain. Uh, this
is a view from the deck of the boathouse, looking down towards the bridge. And this is
with a girder bridge example. Okay? This is Park Road looking east, um ... right by
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Hancher. You can see the construction fencing and ... that they've got up there now. So
looking ... uh, easterly down Park... and... you'll notice that the perspective changes, but
here we're on the edge of the curb. That point on the curb kind of becomes the middle of
the westbound lane with the new design. We're basically widening out a little bit on each
side to the park side and to Hancher side, uh, to allow for that center turn lane. Talk a
little bit about the impacts associated with the preferred alternative. Um, once the note
up there, we have about five acres of grading impacts to public parks and open space.
Again, that's just changing the grade that's there now and most of that is passive
recreational open space. Uh, we're not getting into any facilities like the skate park. It
may involve having to move the, um, sculpture that's there, that I think was ... used to be
up by Van Allen then they moved it out. That might have to be relocated, but that's
something we would figure out during design. Um ... we have some grading impacts,
which I'm sure you've heard about, associated with the preferred, and that's what the 1.2
acres is, uh, for historic, uh, sites or districts, but I really want to stress — we're not
touching any structures... as part of the grading impacts. Uh, we do impact the flood
plain. Obviously we're working in the existing flood plain, so elevating it would have
some impacts. Uh, in terms of right -of -way acquisitions, we would need about two -
tenths of an acre for residential, and that would be in part to relocate Ridge Road and line
it up with the entrance to the boathouse. And it make for a better connection if we're
elevating it to go chase Ridge Road up and connect in there. So that's the residential
impact. The other impacts are really on... along Terrell Mill Park and on University
property in lower City Park on the west landing of the bridge. And this is just ... you can
see some of the shading so ... uh, the purple is ... uh, where we would have right -of -way go
back to the City, where we would not be using Park Road with ... after we tear out the, uh,
existing bridge. The kind of orangish shading are impacts to the University property, uh,
some impacts in the vicinity of City Park at Templin, and then as I mentioned, up at
Terrell Mill Park and where we would, um, change the connection for the boathouse and
Ridge Road and realign that. I do want to stress that we did pay particular attention to the
cultural resources. There's a number of historic districts which you're aware of. There's
historic properties, um, there are archeological sites. I'd like to point out that the folks
who did this work are very familiar with the project area. The archeology was led by the
Office of the State Archeologist. They're associated with the University of Iowa. Their
offices are over on Clinton Street, down by the railroad tracks. They're very familiar.
They are the State archeologists. They know everything there is to know about
archeology in the state of Iowa. That's their job. They did all the archeological survey
work for us. For the historic resources, sites, districts, things like that — we used Tall
Grass Historians. They're based in Iowa City. They're very familiar. They do great
work. They work with us and the DOT and... and the State Archeologist all the time, and
they live and work in Iowa City. They're very familiar with the ... with the corridor and
the nature of the districts, and the locations there. Um, throughout all of this we
coordinated with the Historic Preservation Commission. I believe we had two
presentations that Melissa did. Uh, one as recently as... as early July and another one
previously last summer. We coordinated with Iowa DOT cultural resource staff
throughout what they call the Section 106 process. That's all the archeological and
historic impact, uh, work we did, and all that involved coordinating with the State
Historic Preservation Officer. Um, initially that worked culminated with what they...
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what they call the "conditional no effect" determination. That's saying ... that we have no
effect on resources in the corridor. The conditional part comes with an old WPA wall
that was covered up a couple years ago when the Corps dropped all that rip -rap just south
of the existing bridge. Somewhere in there is a WPA wall. The conditional piece of this
is is that if we get into construction and we run into that wall, we stop what we're doing,
we contact SHIPO. They make some determination if they need to go in and investigate
it or ... or what we need to do as a next step. That's why it's a conditional no effect.
Otherwise it would be no effect. Um ... that was because of requests of residents in the
city to be looked at again. Uh, the Iowa DOT asked that the State Archeologist and their
highway archeological program do an evaluation to see has anything changed since we
received that initial conditional no effect last summer? Had anything in the design or
during any of the process change from that point to this point? They did that evaluation
and in early July they came back, right before the Historic Commission meeting and said,
no. The design is the same design that was reviewed and approved in 2012. It hasn't
changed whatsoever. So everything still looks good to us. And following that, um, there
was another, um ... Historic Preservation Committee meeting where they again, uh, I think
it was a 7 -1 vote with one absentia that said we still approve of the project. We don't...
we have concerns related to grading. We have concerns related to drainage to make sure
we don't impact the properties. And that's great because that's the kind of thing that
we'll be talking about with folks throughout the design process, to make sure we
minimize grading impacts and we don't create drainage problems for the residents. Most
recently, um ... the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation was contacted. That is an
advisory council to the President. Uh, they did ... we sent about 1,500 pages of
documentation from the different archeological reports, the cultural resource reports, to
just a list of correspondence that we've had over the past three years with residents, and
sent that to them for their review. They have come back and asked that some additional
work be done, um, they were looking to Federal Highway and DOT to get more involved,
and at this point, Federal Highway is trying to decide whether or not they want to follow
the recommendations of the council, or how they want to proceed. We don't know that
yet. We're hoping we can find out later this week. Uh, public outreach has been ongoing
throughout the three years. Uh, City staff I know have had scores, if not hundreds, of
combination of phone calls, personal visits, emails, visits to resident's homes, community
presentations that have cur ... occurred throughout the three year period. Uh, we had our
first public meeting, I think, in March of 2011 that was attended by nearly 200 folks over
at Park Church. Uh, we had another meeting later in July that was attended by ... eh,
about a 100 to 125. We had a drop -in center over at the Rec Center down the street in
December of...2011. Uh, we had a public hearing again recently, about five months ago
now, in April. Uh ... throughout that we were available for any comments, questions,
happy to provide any answers that folks had. Around all these meetings we had multiple
paid ads in the Daily Iowan, the Press - Citizen, uh, advertising that the meetings were
going to happen. We had press releases to local media saying the same thing. We have a
project web site and it's on the City web site with connections to that has been up and
running for the whole three years of the study. We have a mailing list of nearly 2,000
individuals. Uh, any time we send out a piece of mail, we make sure we send it to the
North Side Neighborhood Association and they distribute it to all of their members and
residents. Um ... numerous neighborhood and civic group meetings. So we have had a
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very, very involved public involvement process and have tried to be as available as we
can to answer questions that folks have during this whole process. We've coordinated
with a whole roster of public agencies during all of this. The ones that I have up on the
top of the slide are some of those that have actual, uh, decision making. So Federal
Highway, EDA, Iowa DOT you'll see different things, but the key ones really are the
finding of no significant impact. That's how Federal Highway would conclude this
NEPA process with that finding. Um, the conditional no effect, or no adverse effect I've
talked about already. Um, the letters of...of project support that were from the Historic
Preservation Commission. A lot of these other agencies that are at the bottom of this
slide are ones that really get into more contact with ... when we get into the design and
permitting phase of the project. That gets us to some design decisions and we're not
going to ask... staff s not going to ask for any design decisions tonight, nor are they going
to make any recommendations. But these are things to keep in mind as you're reviewing
the materials in the packet and as we're looking ahead, uh, about what we want to do
with the project. Uh, from a roadway perspective, it's really about what level of
protection you want to have for Dubuque Street. Um, the options really range from a foot
above the 100 -year flood plain because that was kind of...that was a stipulation of the
EDA grant that helped find ... helped fund this study, to a foot above the 500 -year flood
plain. So there's some ... with the preferred alternative, like you had asked about
previously, that's where you have some room to work, and the reason again that we did
the 500- plus -one was cause that has the most impact, and it's much easier to work your
way in than it is to work your way out and reopen a number of processes with the Federal
Highway Administration. From a bridge perspective, again, we have that 100 - plus -one to
a 500- plus -one elevation. When it comes to backwater, nothing will eliminate backwater
short of taking the existing bridge out and not putting anything back. But what we want
to do is find that sweet spot where you get the right elevation with some backwater
reduction, and it's just a question of which you want to maximize. If you maximize the
elevations you're going to maximize the backwater reduction. If you do something a
little bit less, you'll have a little bit less backwater reduction. And then the other decision
is really what type of bridge you might like to see replace the existing Park Road bridge.
We talked a little about the floodway level of protection. You've got a range — from 100 -
plus -one to 500- plus -one. On the roadways, some pros and cons I just mentioned. If... a
pro might be seen as you elevate the roadway to 500- plus -one, that offers you the
maximum protection from future closures. But, on the other hand, that also has the
greatest impact in terms of grading. Okay? So ... that's really what we're looking at. If
you increase the elevation, you're going to increase the impacts. If you reduce the
elevation, you'll be able to reduce the impacts some. It also, as you elevate higher up,
it's going to cost a little bit more because you're going to need more fill, you're going to
need a higher retaining wall, which we'll talk about more in a minute. I did want to show
you real quick some views, another rendering of what the different elevations might look
like as it's associated with the wall. Right there, uh, by the fraternity to the right and to
Mayflower, over to the left. Now I will note that this picture was taken some time around
the floods this spring, so don't hold it against Mike that the park wasn't very well
maintained at that moment. So this is an example of the 100 - plus -one and it's tough to
see, but look at that white van that's on ... on the southbound lane or maybe the Sigma Phi
letters that are just beneath the driveway to the fraternity and that'll help you kind of
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September 17, 2013 Iowa City City Council Work Session Page 19
focus on the differences in elevations. So this is 100 - plus -one. This would be elevating
it to 2008 - plus -one, and this is 500- plus -one. So ... 500, 2008, and a foot above the 100 -
year flood plain. Okay? Uh, I did want to mention, and I ... I think I touched on this
before, but, uh, we did want to make sure that we did our best to pro ... to enhance what's
there currently for bicyclists and pedestrians. That includes improvements to the Iowa
River Trail. That includes adding sidewalks where ... where there are none currently,
especially along the northbound lanes of Dubuque, basically from Kimball all the way up
to Foster — that would be new sidewalk. I touched a little bit earlier about the range of
bridge options. The three types that we really focused on initially were a girder bridge,
an arch bridge, or the cable- stayed. Um, we talked about the elevation and the back...
and its effect on backwater reduction already, and the common features of the bridge. So
let's take a little bit of a look at what the different bridge might look like, uh, with the
project at 500- plus -one. So here's... here's the current corridor. You can see the current
bridge in the background. Here's an example of the, um, girder bridge. Here is... a
bridge simi ... a deck simi ... it's called a deck arch. It's very similar to the Iowa Avenue
bridge and to one of the Burlington Street bridges. This is a slight variation of the arch
bridge. It's called a partial through arch. The nice thing about this bridge, and we've
really only looked at it for the last ... past couple weeks because as I mentioned before,
through NEPA we documented the girder bridge, but we understand that you want to
have some flexibility in terms of elevations and backwater reduction, so we're looking at
the arch bridge as a potential that might be offering better, um ... a better balance between
offering that backwater reduction, minimizing some of the elevations, and from my
personal perspective, the arch bridges look a little bit nicer than kind of the DOT girder
bridge. Yes?
Dobyns/ Trying to look at those two ... can you flick back (mumbled)
Pierson/ Sure! (noises on mic)
Dobyns/ ...trying to look at the ... the height of the deck.
Pierson/ Let me show you the (both talking) cable (mumbled) oops, this is where you... so here's
the cable stay. It's got the thinnest structure, so you'd be able to have lower elevations.
The problem with ... the con with the cable stay is it's very complex and would cost $10
to $12 million more than any of the other bridge types. That's also about a 12 -story
tower... holding up the cables. (several talking) We ruled that out for cost and because
of just the height. It just kind of fills the whole corridor there. But, pay attention to, if
you will, the Dubuque and Park Road intersection, cause there you can ... as I go
backwards you'll be able to see how the thinner structure type, and a cable stay's the
thinnest, the arch would be a little bit thicker, and then the girder's the thickest, how the
elevation changes slightly, and again, this is at 500- plus -one and so you'll see that they're
not all the same. So here's the cable stay. Here's one of the arches. We kept it the same.
And then you can see that bump between an arch ... and the girder. And that's because
the girder would probably be between 8 to 10 feet thick from the top of the pier, that's the
structure depth. Okay? So from the bottom of the steel which is where we're
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determining what we're clearing for a flood to where the driving surface is. So girder,
one deck, another deck, and then the cable stay. Okay?
Payne/ Flip back one.
Pierson/ Sure!
Payne/ So that ... there's only two piers.
Pierson/ Right!
Payne/ So then the backwater is going to be less.
Pierson/ This is a nice balance because the girder bridge... offers you the best backwater
reduction, because there's less stuff in the water, less foundation, less piers in the water.
Okay? That's good until the water actually gets to the girder, and then you know what
happens... you've had that experience in 2008. The, um...
Payne / What's the thickness here compared to...
Pierson/ In this one, the ... the example that we have here is approximately 7 feet, and the girder
is closer to 10.
Dobyns/ Can you jump to the girder now?
Pierson/ Sure! So the deck ... the decks in these, both of these examples are ... are roughly the
same thickness. So we'll just go between girder. There's your girder.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Pierson/ There's your arch. Now, this is again without any detailed design, and so I want to
point out we're trying to be conservative. So is a girder bridge really going to be 10 feet?
No, there are probably some things that we can do to shrink that down in terms of the
depth of the structure. Okay? And likewise, the arch bridge, um, the one that we're
showing there is approximately 20 feet from where this ... the bottom of the arch meets
the pier to the driving surface. That's about 19 or 20 feet. There are things we can do in
design to start to shrink that distance between the top of the arch, where that peak is, and
the driving surface. Right now it's about 4 -feet in this example. But again, very, very
conceptual. A lot of the detail has to get sorted out during design, and we just have not
advanced that far yet. But, in big picture terms ... the arch bridge is going to be thinner
and be able to have the same level of protection at a little bit lower driving elevation than
you would have with the girder.
Payne/ But does that (both talking) that arch where it hooks on to the ... the abutment.
Pierson/ Uh huh.
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Payne/ It looks like it's further down in the water. So is it going to cause more backwater?
Pierson/ No ... well, a little bit, and I'm talking the difference between a girder bridge and an arch
bridge in terms of backwater reduction, the girder bridge is going to be about that much
better. Like an inch and a half, in any given example. Which is not inconsequential if
it's ... if it's pushing water back upstream. To your home ... but we're talking about an
inch to an inch and a half. In terms of the amount of reduction that a girder would afford
versus a ... a deck, deck arch. We've talked about the pros and cons as we've been going
through this, uh, the arch bridge is approximately $2.5 to $3 million more expensive. Uh,
now it has a ripple effect when you look at a cost estimate, because if you increase the
dollar amount associated with the bridge, it ripples through the different contingences
that we have at this stage. So when we look at cost here in a little bit, you'll see a range
in difference closer to about $3.3 million and that's because of the effect it has on
contingencies. Uh, but again, the higher the elevation, the better the backwater reduction
and the more available that the roadway would be, uh, for the public during a... during a
flood event.
Dickens/ (noise on mic) ...arched bridges, the deck arch and the...
Pierson/ The nice thing about the, um ... this example, um ... with this partial through arch they
call it cause ... the arch is partially cut through by the deck. You'll notice this one only
has two piers in the water, so it performs somewhere in between the arch example and the
girder example. So now maybe you've got that much better performance by the girder.
This has a longer ... a longer main span. It's about 210 feet in this example. The other
spans with the, um, with the girder bridge, for example, are about 75, 150, 150, and 75.
And similar spans for this arch example. You've got kind of two half arches, and two
full arches. (unable to hear person speaking away from mic) As I said, anything you do
with any of these bridges will be better than what's out there today. You know, the
current bridge has about ... and this is not to scale, but 14 inches of backwater. The
different bridge options that I think that were discussed in your Council packets range
anywhere from maybe reducing it ... a ... an inch to about 10 inches, but again that's...
that's a high -level model. That's not what we can necessarily do and design. You can't
eliminate it all together if you have a bridge there, but we can certainly reduce it from
what's there today. And that's the different examples. So if you've got a 50 -year flood
event, a girder bridge at a 500- plus -one would reduce about an inch of backwater from
what's there currently. So instead of 14 inches of backwater you might have 13 inches of
backwater. And all the way up to, uh, at a 2000... similar to a 2008 flood, a girder bridge
would reduce about 10 inches of backwater from ... from the 12 to 14 inches that was
caused by the current bridge. But again, all of these perform better than what's out there
today. Uh, a little bit about the cost estimate and opinions that we had for you. I pointed
out the difference between the girder and the deck arch is really the cost of the bridge, the
deck ... the arched bridges are just more complex, little bit more difficult to construct. All
of these options can be constructed in two seasons. The girder, uh, the girder is just a
simpler bridge to build than the arch bridge. Um, and I talked about why there's a about
a $3.3 million difference if you're looking at a 500- plus -one for either of those. It's just a
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ripple effect through the ... through the different contingencies that we have at this high a
level of an estimate. And again, I think Rick pointed out earlier that those costs are
separate from the trunk sewer costs, which were I think about $4.4 million. Um, Rick, do
you want to talk about the (mumbled) option?
Fosse/ Sure!
Pierson/ Okay.
Fosse/ Offered to do this because I'm most familiar with our ... our local infrastructure and ... and
some of our commitments that would continue to exist if we chose to do nothing on this
project, that is don't ... don't move forward.
Dobyns/ Most familiar with doing nothing, Rick? (laughter)
Fosse/ Yes! That's my specialty! (laughter) Yeah! Uh ... we still need to reconstruct that north
corridor trunk sewer, and there's actually two old trunk sewers through there now, one
dates back to the 1930s and we want to combine those into one that's sized so that it can
serve that area, the Rapid Creek water shed north of I -80 that, in the long -term we
envision being a part of Iowa City some day. So this is our opportunity to get that sewer
through there. If we don't build it now, we'll need to build it at some point in the future,
and we have to take the road out to do that. Um, because of the age of...of most of the
pavement on Dubuque Street, eventually we're going to need to replace that. Uh, the...
the bridge is in need of major repair or replacement. We have problems above the water
line that you can see. We have problems below the water line that you cannot see.
What's interesting with that existing bridge is those ... those solid looking concrete piers.
As soon as they penetrate the water, the concrete stops and below that steel H piles go
down to the bottom of the river, and as the river bottom scours, it exposes more of those
H piles and ... and creates a vulnerability of that bridge to lateral loads, when water and
debris hits it. Uh, the last time we ... we rented a barge and put additional rip -rap around
that was ... was 23 years ago. So that's... it's... it's in need again ... so there's... there's
deck problems to that bridge. There's... there's, uh, a number of deficiencies there. Um,
we'd still need to widen Park Road to three lanes from ... from Riverside, uh, down to
lower City Park, and the ... the right turn lane for soutbo ... southbound Dubuque Street to
westbound Park Road would still need to be done. And, uh, also with this project we'd
replace a lot of the aging infrastructure along there. Um, the ... the water, storm sewer,
lighting, and we get that ... the overhead utilities underground, which is a ... another level
of protection for our energy source for our water plant, cause that's where it comes
through, and right now it's vulnerable to trees and stuff falling on it. So HNTB's
estimate of...of what all these things would cost over the next few years would be...
would be roughly $31.7 million to complete all those things independent of this project.
And I also wanted to show you just a couple of pages from our FY09 capital program.
Now this was approved in the spring of 2008, so this was our last capital program prior to
the flood, and ... urn ... it's a little fuzzy on here but this is the, uh, Park Road bridge and
urn ... excuse me, Park Road and the bridge improvements, and that includes the, um...
get a copy I can read here. It's got the replacement of the bridge deck and then also adds
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the right turn lane (noises on mic) to southbound Dubuque Street, and then also it adds
the third lane to Park Road from lower City Park through Riverside Drive. So these are
improvements that were contemplated prior to the flood and... and were a priority for us
that were in our capital program. Over on this side you see the, um, that is the Rapid
Creek water shed sewer study. So that was the front end of asking the question how do
we service that area north of I -80 that's in the Rapid Creek water shed. We know the
answer to that now. The answer is ... is running a sewer through this corridor and this
project is our opportunity to do that. So I just wanted to go into some depth on that to...
to make the point that doing nothing is not doing nothing here, in this case.
Pierson/ The next steps really, um, involve... getting the final Federal Highway approval and
then from there the ball's in your court. And as we talked about earlier, it's really...
moving forward with the Gateway, it's finding that right balance between those three
decision points that we talked about. What's the right elevation to have the bridge and
the road that offers you the backwater reduction, um, what's the, urn ... bridge type that
you want to have, and I'm draw ... I'm feeling like Rick Perry here for a second, I can't
remember the third thing (laughter) Um...
Throgmorton/ Don't run for President! (laughter and several talking)
Pierson/ Well it is almost caucus season, right? (laughter and several talking) Um ... but really,
what's the right elevation that you want to have for the roadway, what's the best
backwater reduction option, and what do we want to do for the appearances, the bridge
type and finding that cost associated with that, so really what's ... what are the levers to
pull that gets that right ... that right balance to move forward with the project. And with
that we'll ... we'll turn it over for any questions that you might have.
Throgmorton/ Matt, how do you want to proceed, to be fair to every Council Member you want
to maybe rotate from Council Member to Council Member to ask a question or ... I mean,
what do you want to do?
Hayek/ Well I ... I would ... why don't we just kind of start, but let's try to mix it up. I don't think
we need to have a precise round -robin but ... want to make sure everybody has a chance to
(both talking)
Dickens/ I ... I'll start ... just with a quick thing. I ... what struck me was the grading impacts, the
25% reduction may likely not result in a 25% reduction. So how do we ... we're dealing
with the widest and (both talking) not necessarily doesn't (both talking)
Pierson/ It's not a one -to -one ratio.
Dickens/ Right, doesn't affect the impact so...
Pierson/ It will affect it, I mean, if you... if you lower the elevation, it's really... geometry, but so
if the elevation's up here and your impacts are out here, you lower it and it's going to
come in some, but it's not going to come in at a one -to -one (both talking)
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Dickens/ Proportionately.
Pierson/ It's not going to be proportional.
Mims/ Kind of related to that, I'm going to jump in cause it kind of relates to what Rick is
asking, is the horizontal footprint.
Pierson/ Uh huh.
Mims/ ...in terms of, um, and it's something I think some of us have thought about and... and I
know was in some of our, um, correspondence, that horizontal footprint in terms of
determining lane widths, median widths, urn ... trail and /or sidewalk widths ... where do
you see the flexibility in that?
Pierson/ Really the flexibility... there's a couple things, I mean... 12 -foot travel lanes are really
the standard to follow. Um, you could narrow those up a little bit to reduce the footprint,
um, that might have some different affects to reduce speed, but it's also quite ... not quite
as safe as a 12 -foot travel lane is for folks. Um, we assumed, uh, a buffer between the
back of curb and where the sidewalks would be, I think about 8 -feet? That'll allow us a
couple things. That allows space for snow to store during the winter when you plow the
streets and it's not dumpin' on the sidewalk. Um, but also it gives the bicyclists or the
pedestrian a little bit more comfort level using that sidewalk or trail if there's a cushion
between them and the ... and the ... the travelway for the ... for the vehicles. So different
things you could do would be to ... narrow the sidewalks. They're ... if this is a 8 -foot
sidewalk, I think we can narrow it down to 5 -feet and still meet ADA requirements. So
there you've gained 3 feet. Um, you could shrink up that space between the back of curb
and the sidewalk or trail (noises on mic) But, then that's a balance between what your
comfort level is in terms of snow storage and safety, versus the footprint of... of that
cross - section through there. So those are some different things. You could also if you
want to eliminate some of the impacts you could use retaining wall rather than a... a
gradual four -to -one slope. If you drop a wall in there, you're not getting in with ... with
that sloped area, um, it may not be quite as appealing visually for the corridor to have a
bunch of retaining walls at the edges of those sidewalks with some... some barrier rail
along there. Decorative or otherwise, urn ... that you wouldn't necessarily need if you had
a grass slope on the outside of the sidewalk. But those are some of the different things
that we can work through during a design process. If we need to scrunch up that footprint
in the vicinity of... of a given area.
Hayek/ What are you anticipating the... retaining wall material (both talking) to be?
Pierson/ We haven't gotten into aesthetics very much. I mean, that's where in the design phase
you could really have that back and forth about what you want the wall to look like,
whether you want to have ... I think there's been some discussion, and Melissa, help me
out with this, but there are some things that you might be able to do with ... with the walls
that we're talking about using to either use concrete or other material to have it mimic,
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for instance, the quarried slopes that are up and down this corridor. So it has more of a
natural look to it. You can do stamped concrete so it has different looks and feels to it.
There's different options. It's a question really between aesthetics and the cost associated
with the treatments on that, but we haven't gotten into a lot of detail about that.
Hayek/ Do your preliminary cost estimates presume a certain kind of retaining wall, I mean, a
rip -rap or some other (both talking)
Pierson/ Right, the ... what we're looking at in the cost estimates is what's called an MSE wall.
And those are ... Matt, help me out here! But give me a little detail about what an MSE
wall is, versus another wall for instance.
Spencer/ We can do MSE walls if we pull the road away from the river a little bit, um ... much
less expensive option than to say if you took the roadway right up to the edge of the river
and the ... and the bank, and you had to drive a bunch of piles and it's cal... basically a sea
wall, that you would need to drill down into bedrock several feet to prevent scour from
eroding the wall and ... and the roadway underneath but...
Champion/ The one thing that I really missed in your presentation (laughter and several talking)
Hayek/ Security blanket I guess! (laughter)
Champion/ ...is um ... what this is going to look like toward the, um, east and west, rather than
north and south. I mean, all of your visuals were following the roadway. They didn't
have kind of what it's going to look along the side, like what's going to actually happen
to those driveways and those houses and those roads? Or did I miss it?
Pierson/ Well, no, we didn't get into visualizations of each, or a variety of the different
properties. Um, the driveway access would be different, but we'd maintain it. It would
be a little bit higher elevation, depending on whatever the selection is that you want to
elevate the roadway to. Um ... in terms of...
Champion/ Cause that's what's people's concerns are.
Pierson/ Absolutely! Um ... we can try to ... again, if you minimize the slopes, you can minimize
the impacts to the vegetation along there. Now keep in mind the City has a tree
replacement policy of, is it 2 to 1, Melissa?
Champion/ We know. We know.
Pierson/ I know. But... so it's not like we're going to take trees out and leave it barren. Again,
we've been working with Project Green on this project. The staff have been working
with Project Green for probably about three and a half years, well in advance of the
project actually being awarded to HNTB to work on it. Wanting to maintain, and be
involved from the beginning to help determine what the look and feel of the corridor is.
We really do want to maintain the views that you have now throughout the corridor. It'll
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be a little bit higher in some spots, but we don't want to just plow a road, if you will, or a
highway through this corridor.
Champion/ Okay, so if you did one foot above the 100 -year flood plain, and you used that skinny
bridge, I can't remember what it's called. The cute one. (several talking and laughing)
...nice sculpture on top! (laughter)
Pierson/ Oh, the through arch? This ... let's see if I can go up to it. We'll... we'll ... (several
talking)
Champion/ Yes!
Pierson/ This one? (several talking) This guy? This one?
Dobyns/ Yes!
Throgmorton/ That's the one you meant, Connie (several talking)
Champion/ ...meant the skinny one, this one. (laughter and several talking)
Throgmorton/ That's the $12 million bridge (several talking)
Champion/ I know! I'm just asking!
Pierson/ The depth...
Champion/ Cause this would reduce the backsplash, right, even more.
Pierson/ This would reduce the back ... this would ... this one would perform the best of any of
`em...
Champion/ Right, so...
Pierson/ ... in terms of backwater reduction cause you've only got that one t... one pier.
Champion/ And if you save money by just going ... would you save money by going just one foot
above the 100 -year flood ... plain? Would that cut the cost of the project?
Pierson/ That would re ... yes, and we can go to the cost for that. The lower the elevation, the
lower the cost of the overall project. Unless you're talking about a cable stay and then I
haven't got all the cost opinions for that, but know that that bridge is roughly (both
talking)
Champion/ I'm just pointing out that they're doing one of these in Dallas and they're making all
these wires, and they're taking (both talking)
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Pierson/Oh they're really cool! We've built, if you've ever been to Omaha, Council Bluffs, we
did the (both talking) pedestrian bridge.
Champion/ ...but...
Pierson/ ...that you see all the time on the college baseball world series when they do the
overhead shots. I mean, cable stays (both talking)
Champion/ ...how much you would save because ... (both talking)
Pierson/ ...deck arches are what we do.
Champion/ ... maybe it won't save enough to pay for that bridge, uh.. .
Pierson/ You won't. Lowering an elevation and dropping in a cable stay will not save you
money. I think when we did very, very preliminary estimates and ... it was at least $45 if
not at a higher end, closer to $55 million with a cable stay bridge. That's why we didn't
advance it through the NEPA process further than we did.
Champion/ Okay.
Throgmorton/ If I could spin off Connie's question. Do I understand correctly that combining
the roadway elevation and the bridge options that the 100 - plus -one option would be
roughly $8 million less expensive than the 500- plus -one option? Roughly.
Pierson/ Roughly. And ... and again, there ... you can mix and match the roadway elevation on
Dubuque Street (both talking)
Throgmorton/ Right ... yeah, so ... (both talking)
Pierson/ ...with the bridge (both talking) might have different costs associated with it.
Throgmorton/ Do I understand correctly that, um ... in the past 20 years, Dubuque Street has, um,
flooded, uh, 100...for 150 days, or been not passable for 150 days.
Pierson/ Uh huh.
Throgmorton/ Whereas with the 100- plus -one option... it probably, well, you know, one doesn't
know about the future, but given the numbers that are available, it would not be passable
... it would not have been passable for six days. That's what I read in... in the document.
Is it ... is that right, Rick? Yeah, Rick's nodding his head yes.
Dobyns/ You want to throw those numbers out again.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, so ... you can translate.
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Pierson/ So during the life of Park Road over the last 20 years since the 93 floods, Dubuque
Street has been cau ... has been shut down because of discharges from the reservoir for
approximately 150 days. If you have the roadway elevated at the 100- plus ... a foot above
the 100 -year flood plain, it would have only been shut down for about six days. Give or
take.
Dobyns/ A hundred plus one. Five hundred plus one, zero. By definition.
Throgmorton/ Yeah. Yeah.
Pierson/ Yeah, cause the 2008 flood didn't get quite to the 500 -year flood plain. It was about a
foot, foot and a half below.
Dobyns/ Is there any way that we can in anticipation of the next session get a sense of the value
of that number in terms of what it means, I mean, what is the harm of Dubuque Street as
a major entry closing?
Throgmorton/ For six days. In 20 years.
Dobyns/ For any day, uh, in (several talking) value, which I agree, we can't measure. We're all
going to have to come up with that in our own minds and hearts, but is there an economic
value? Is there a ... is there a number that can even be ... because...
Payne/ I mean, how would ... would you do that because if it takes me 30 minutes longer to get to
where I need to go because I have to go through town, do you put a value on that? Do
you put a value on everybody's time for driving a different route (both talking) I mean,
or is it just how much extra gas people actually expended or, you know, what are the
environmental aspects of...
Dobyns/ ...because all these ... these engineering decisions are smaller decisions. They're based
on the larger assumption of what's the harm of Dubuque Street flooding anyway, and I
think ... you know ... I don't think we want to not do anything.
Hayek/ You ought to put your thing on!
Dobyns/ Uh, we don't want to do anything, but um ... what is the value of a zero percent chance
versus a six -day chance over 93, that's 20 years.
Pierson/ Well, there is no zero percent chance.
Dobyns/ Well (laughter) I just
Pierson/ I just want to be clear, even at one foot above the 500 year, I can't predict the future
so...
Dobyns/ ... zero -ish! (both talking) Can we agree to that?
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Pierson/ Yeah! (several talking and laughing)
Dickens/ Has this ... has this been updated with all the new levees that are being built like up river
from us, Coralville and all that?
Pierson/ Updated in...
Dickens/ As far as ... how that affects the water coming down.
Pierson/ Right.
Dickens/ Farther to Iowa City.
Pierson/ Uh, John ... what was all included in the model that you ran for this? Which ... which
projects...
Hayek/ If you're going to give an answer, we ... actually if you wouldn't mind coming up, just
...we have to pick it up on the recorder (both talking)
Dickens/ Just what the affect of, you know, we've had quite a few levees built in Coralville
and... how... how does that affect how the water's coming (several talking)
Blancett/ And Coralville's upstream so that wouldn't have an effect on what's going on
downstream.
Dickens/ But it's pushing the water (both talking)
Blancett/ ...this model is a 2009 (several talking) calibrated model (both talking)
Pierson/ But I think it gets to ... maybe your question is, if we do improvements here, what
happens downstream? With the water or...
Dickens/ Well, I didn't know if the affect from Coralville, since they've done this since 2000...
some of it's just been finished, does that affect how it ... cause it's coming down toward
us now. Will that affect how high the water will hit?
Blancett/ It won't. It's what's happening... (several talking) changes downstream affect what's
going on upstream.
Champion/ The other ... the other thing, urn ... that I wanted to ask about, and guess because
reading all this, but my mind had a hard time comprehending all of it! (several talking)
Urn ... if we elevate one foot above ... what if we just elevate to a hundred... year?
Throgmorton/ Can't do it.
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Champion/ Can't do that? Okay. If we elevate one foot, that also allows the reservoir to expel
more water, isn't that true? From what (mumbled) in now.
Pierson/ Right.
Champion/ ...where we're at now, because they don't put as much water (mumbled) keep
Dubuque Street open.
Pierson/ Right.
Champion/ So I have to assume that they can start letting more water out earlier. We might have
zeroish. Very zero. (laughter)
Pierson/ You could assume that. I won't. (laughter) But... so it will certainly help what the
Corps can release and how much and how soon. They won't have to pick up the phone
as quickly to call Rick to let him know that it's coming.
Champion/ Right.
Brammel/ I ... I have a question concerning, um, the differences between the 2008 flood, uh,
levels and the ... and the 500 -year flood levels. You said I think just a couple minutes ago
that it was only a couple feet or so. Is that right?
Pierson/ It's about a ... foot and a half.
Brammel/ So foot and a half separates 2008 flooding... (both talking)
Pierson/ From a 500.
Brammel/ ...the 500 -year (both talking)
Markus/ What year flood was it? What kind of year flood was it? (unable to hear person
speaking away from mic)
Hayek/ If you could repeat that.
Pierson/ So it's closer to the 500 -year event than it would have been to a 100 -year event. But I
don't know the exact ... I don't know if it was 359 or 443 or ... but it's closer to the 500
than it is to 100.
Champion/ So in this literature, there was also another flood. I couldn't remember the year.
When (mumbled) Dubuque Street was actually closed more days than it was in 2008, or
am I wrong?
Pierson/ In 93 it was.
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Champion/ In 93 it was closed how many days? Does anybody remember?
Pierson/ It was not as high a ... the elevations weren't as high in 93, but it was a longer duration.
Champion/ Okay, it was a longer duration.
Pierson/ Right.
Champion/ So now we want to do something about it. Why didn't we want to do something
about it then?
Pierson/ I don't know!
Champion/ Do you have the answer to that, Rick? (laughter) Now it's ... now it has to be done!
(laughter and several talking)
Hayek/ Connie, you were in your third term at that, uh, era I think (laughter) you can tell us!
(laughter)
Fosse/ That's right. You might have ... you might have been on the Council then! (laughter)
Champion/ I don't think so!
Fosse/ Uh, there was some discussion about working with the EDA at that time to secure some
funding for this project, uh, but that did not advance, uh, beyond a work session
discussion. So at that time, uh, we thought we'd seen the worst, we were ready to move
on and ... and uh, leave it as is.
Champion/ So it was thought about.
Fosse/ Yes, it was contemplated.
Champion/ Okay, thank you!
Dobyns/ So I have a question, sort of I want my cake and eat it too, um, let's say I want... we
went with the 500- plus -one for the top of the deck and for Dubuque Street, um, but let's
say I wanted to...
Pierson/ Just so you know the 500- plus -one when we refer to it as the bridge at 500- plus -one,
that's the very bottom of the super structure (both talking)
Dobyns/ Okay! Right.
Pierson/ (both talking) ...call the low steel, so your driving surface is above that. So (both
talking)
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Dobyns/ Got it. Okay. (both talking) Okay, thank you for that clarification. So let's say
Dubuque Street 500- plus -one.
Pierson/ Sure.
Dobyns/ And I want to minimize, uh, damage to adjoining properties to the east, on their slope,
both north and south of Mayflower. Um ... how much can I hedge, cause I assume...
how ... how steep can I make the slope because if you crawl up that hill...
Pierson/ Uh huh.
Dobyns/ ...Dubuque Street is widened. It's elevated, and what is it, it's three to one, Rick, is
that ... or Ron, we were talking about it. It's a three to one slope.
Pierson/ Is that the current slope out there, along like Terrell Mill? I'm guessing (both talking)
Dobyns/ ...or something... it's something for (several talking) Can we hedge without making a,
cause I think what we were talking about the possibility of actually making somewhat of
a wall, or making that more of a slope, so the trees aren't ... so the ... the grade off the
heightened Dubuque Street, uh, the grade doesn't reach out and suffocate those trees.
Pierson/ Sure.
Dobyns/ Uh, there's a couple things. We could make tree wells, I assume, and preserve a lot of
those trees, because new trees ain't gonna do it! Those trees are like over 100 feet tall,
um, that's going to take a while for that, um, to grow, plus you can also maybe cheat on
the slope and make that a, uh, steeper slope. Could you comment on those things?
Pierson/ Sure. You ... you can change the slope, um, I would point out that if you did like a two
to one slope that's hard to maintain. Um, I (mumbled) wouldn't want to have to mow a
two to one slope. That wouldn't be any fun. It ... four to one is more standard. Six to one
would be ideal cause it's nice and gradual.
Dobyns/ But to save...
Pierson/ (both talking) ...wanted to save impacts you could do retaining wall there...
Dobyns/ (both talking) ...that protect a neighborhood.
Pierson/ Sure! You could ... you could ... you could change the ... the slope. You could use
retaining wall to ... to minimize impacts through there. But again, if you're looking at an
aesthetic standpoint, it's a balancing act again between being able to maintain it, uh, the
impact to the trees, but also if you use the wall ... you could in effect create a kind of a
gully that wouldn't be very pleasing (both talking)
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Dobyns/ ...and these questions are still relevant for 2008 plus one on Dubuque Street (both
talking)
Pierson/ ... it's ... for any of those levels it ... it's just an order of magnitude.
Dobyns/ As part of this session then I guess is to request further information for our next
session?
Pierson/ Uh huh.
Dobyns/ And I ... I guess I'd like to hear about those possibilities because that sort of mitigates
the I guess harmful effect of...at all levels.
Pierson/ Uh huh.
Dobyns/ That raising Dubuque Street would have east of its (mumbled)
Pierson/ Sure. Okay.
Throgmorton/ If I could pick up on that particular point, you said something about you wouldn't
want to be mowing, uh, the ... the slope, you know, if it was too steep. You're referring to
the east side of the ... the northbound side of (both talking)
Pierson/ Or ... or any grass slope that's at two to one. I wouldn't be real fond of mowing.
Throgmorton/ (both talking) ...I don't know that we should assume that anything needs to be
mowed. We can talk about indigenous...
Pierson/ That's fine.
Throgmorton/ ...plantings of grasses, etc.
Pierson/ Sure!
Throgmorton/ All right, uh, but ... I ... I really want to get to a couple other quick points. Um,
would it be possible for you ... for you to easily assess for our purposes, um, the
consequences of something like a 200 - plus - one... alternative, instead of 100? I ... I don't
know if there's ... you know, any value doing it, but it seems to me that there might be.
Pierson/ Sure. Um ... I ... yeah, I think we can (laughs) (mumbled) to you within a couple weeks,
that would give you kind of...and that's maybe where we can give you some cross -
sections, where you can, um ... kind of look at it as if you were looking at a map, looking
down at the area with a line drawn through it and then see what that looks like as you're
looking down the street. And that might be where we'd be able to show different kinds
of slopes and different kinds of elevations.
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Throgmorton/ A ... a related point has to do with HESCO barriers.
Pierson/ Uh huh.
Throgmorton/ So I ... I was reading in the document that, uh, at least the document itself, um, uh,
Ron's version of it, um, basically says that it's ... it's not really worth considering, uh,
installing HESCO barriers with one of the lower elevation options, like a 100 - plus -one
and HESCO barriers, uh, if necessary. So it's not clear to me from reading Ron's, uh...
(laughs) whichever document that appears in, it... it's not clear to me why the HESCO
barrier coupled with a lower elevation is not a viable option.
Pierson/ I can touch on that a little bit. Rick, do you want to ... chime in if I miss anything.
Fosse/ Okay!
Pierson/ Okay. So, part of that is, at least as far as Dubuque's concerned is that you don't have
very many exit options if that barrier were to fail. Because you'd basically be driving on
the road with the barriers between you and the river. If there was any kind of failure, it
would be a challenge to get out of the corridor. If you were in there. Um, there also...
Throgmorton/ If... if the... if the barrier broke and people were driving on the road at that (both
talking)
Pierson/ Correct. Correct. Or if the pumps fail. Um, that you would need to pump water out
onto the other side of the barrier. Um, there also ... there's a cost associated with
deploying those barriers, whether you deploy them and it turns out to be a false alarm or
you deploy it and there's an actual event that they're needed, um, Rick, I think you said
the cost that the University just paid this summer was about $5 million. Now they didn't
need it, thank goodness, but ... that's still $5 million out of pocket that they had to spend
to put those barriers up.
Throgmorton/ Right.
Payne / And that's a maintenance cost versus a capital cost.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, it... it might be helpful to have at least a back -of -the- envelope calculation
about what the expect ... what the cost would be in the event that HESCO barriers were
deployed on Dubuque Street, which is not anywhere near as long as the amount of, uh,
the length of riverfront that the University had to deploy them on. So it'd be helpful to
have a back -of -the- envelope calculation on that, I think.
Pierson/ Okay.
Champion/ My other ... one more question and I ... I think I'm done. (mumbled) somebody else
have something they want to ask.
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Hayek/ Go ahead, Connie! (several talking)
Champion/ Well I was looking at, you had kind of a picture of the Mayflower.
Pierson/ Sure.
Champion/ Uh ... with ... uh, that was the only kind of side view you had with a slope going down
to it.
Pierson/ This one?
Champion/ No. (several talking) (noises on mic) So this ... raising Dubuque Street will not, does
not protect the Mayflower at all (several talking) Is that correct?
Pierson/ What it does is it makes Mayflower accessible. The University has their own protection
project that they're working on right now that would provide the flood protection for the
dorm.
Dobyns/ The road's not a levee.
Pierson/ Correct.
Champion/ Right (both talking)
Pierson/ That's also a decision that was made very early on was to not make an elevated
Dubuque Street a certified levee. It's simply being able to keep the road open.
Champion/ Okay, thank you.
Brammel/ This height that we see right here, is this 500- plus -one?
Pierson/ Yes.
Brammel/ And so that raises about, eh, how far, approximately how far above (both talking)
Pierson/ Well, if you're ... you know, from current roadway ... the top of the stairs is probably
about 10 feet above the pavement. And, instead of going downstairs now you would,
oops ... (several talking) You would go ... well, this is showing just a path going up, but
it'd be the equivalent of about two or three (both talking)
Dobyns/ I like the first floor is now the garden level. (several talking)
Brammel/ Yeah, no ... my biggest concern was ... was, you know, we were talking about it earlier,
about you know properties on the east side and that, if we're going to create ... if we're
going to be depending on how high it is, if there's going to be a gully that you said may
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not be, you know, may not be a good thing (mumbled) because you might be doing
(mumbled) literally doing that, um ... but I haven't (both talking)
Pierson/ ...we would have to work out, you know, this would have a closed drainage through
here so we would design the storm drains to be able to handle the runoff both on the
street and from the slopes behind the dorm.
Brammel/ I'm not 100% familiar with what the University is planning on doing with that either
so I guess I wouldn't (mumbled)
Pierson/ I didn't...
Brammel/ I'm not 100% what the University will be doing with that, with uh, with their plan for
that eit... either, so I...
Hayek/ I just want to ... we need to wrap this up in about seven minutes tops.
Pierson/ Okay.
Hayek/ Cause we've got at least five minutes of other items and then we need to break before the
formal so...
Pierson/ Sure.
Hayek/ Just wanted to put people on alert!
Payne/ I have a question about, um, these alternative... it's a, b, and c. They're pictures and
they...
Pierson/Oh, from the roadway alternatives, a, b, and c?
Payne/ Yes.
Pierson/ Okay.
Payne/ So a ... when you look at the bridge in each picture, it moves further to the south. So I
assume a is the 100 - plus -one; b is the 2008 plus one; and c is the 500- plus -one.
Pierson/ No. The a, b, and c was strictly the ... the alignment of the roadway that it would follow.
It has nothing to do with the elevation. If I'm understanding correctly.
Payne/ Okay, so ... okay (both talking)
Pierson/It was kind of like what alignment do you want this street to follow and then we solved
how high do we want to elevate it.
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Champion/ Okay.
Payne/ Well...
Pierson/ And so ... go ahead!
Payne/ I guess ... I guess my question was is ... obviously each option has a higher elevation. It
goes uphill and each option is further to the south so it's going uphill.
Pierson/ Yes, in that regard, yes. If you skewed the bridge further to the south, it's able to catch
Dubuque at a little bit higher elevation so you don't have to raise it as much above the
existing.
Payne/ So did you pick one of these alternatives...
Pierson/ We did do that, yes, so that we wouldn't, you know, it saves a couple feet of fill if you
were to tie in a new bridge at Dubuque Street where we're proposing. Versus ... go ahead.
Payne/ But it actually makes the road have to be higher because you're tying in at a different
elevation, right? At the ... at the current intersection.
Fosse/ Yep, and we ... the reason that we explored taking it even further south was to reduce the
fill, but the obstacle that we ran into was the entry for that fraternity house that's there.
That's what limits how far south that we can push that.
Payne/ But we didn't pick the furthest south option it doesn't look like. It's actually the furthest
north option that... that's...
Fosse / Right. Because of that driveway (both talking) limiting factor.
Payne/ Okay! We couldn't find another way to get into their (mumbled) to provide them access.
Fosse/ Correct.
Payne/ Okay. Got it!
Mims/ I've got a couple other questions that all kind of tie together related to the footprint that
we're going to end up having, and that is ... um, the bridge that you've ... that you've
recommended is five lanes, um ... two left turn lanes going north, one going south. My
question is, why can't we do just four lanes and have that right -hand lane be both a right
and a left turn, and just put no right turn on red. I mean, I've seen lots of places where
you've got one lane that can even go three different directions. Obviously there we've
only got two, but if you put a no right turn on red you don't get people angry because
people are sitting in front of `em, but when they do get the green light, they can either go
south on Dubuque or they can go north on Dubuque. Is that feasible? If not, explain to
me why.
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Fosse/ That is feasible, but you do lose that key right turn on red for those that are headed into
Iowa City from... from... (both talking)
Mims/ From Park Road?
Fosse/ Yes.
Mims/ (laughs) Personally I think that's a small sacrifice! Um ... another, this kind of relates to
the whole, the whole corridor there. My concern is again, this extra horizontal footprint
with the idea of a sidewalk going all the way up and down on the east side. Um, the idea
of going maybe from Park Road to Kimball, putting in a pedestrian- activated light at
Mayflower, um, I mean, you see those in lots of different places to help people get across
a main thoroughfare like that. And then people from B'Jaysville and Foster can get
across at that light. It does leave some potential gaps, but again when we're looking at
that, the width of the footprint and the impact on those properties on the east, if we get rid
of that sidewalk on the east, through at least part of that corridor, and have the 8 or 10-
foot wide trail on the west side...
Dobyns/ All alone, just by itself.
Mims/ Just by itself. Again, we may want it from Kimball to ... to Park Road.
Dobyns/ (mumbled)
Mims/ Right. Then it seems like that helps us narrow up that footprint, which helps protect those
properties on the east, yet still gives the pedestrian, bicycle, uh, access that we really
want, and if we have good ways to cross Dubuque at Park Road, at Mayflower, at Foster
Road, it seems to me that maybe we can accomplish that...
Dobyns/ It's a bit of a luxury to have two sidewalks on both sides, and a nice new road.
Mims/ I think it is too.
Dobyns/ In that very narrow...
Mims/ Yeah, especially when it is so narrow. Um, the other one that I would question, and I
completely understand why you've got it in there, but again, what this does to the
footprint is that dedicated right turn lane, uh, south down... southbound Dubuque at Park
Road bridge. It makes us go five lanes there instead of four, and again, what that does to
the footprint and pushing up against all those (both talking)
Champion/ (mumbled) getting on that again?
Mims/ The design calls for a dedicated right turn lane on southbound Dubuque to go onto Park
Road bridge. So that makes Dubuque Street five lanes right there. Two northbound, two
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southbound, and a right turn lane. That is narrow there between the river and all those
mature trees, so anything we can do, again, to narrow up that horizontal footprint allows
us to try to protect those trees and the issues with the grading that we have (several
talking)
Champion/ ...talk about going south. (several talking and laughing)
Mims/ Pardon?
Dobyns/ Do you ever make right turns? (laughs)
Mims/ I right turn there a lot, but I'm willing to sacrifice potentially for what it does to the
footprint. (several talking)
Hayek/ Let me ask one ... one final question, then we'll wrap this up. I think as ... as Councilors
figure out what decision to make, the ... the data on number of days over the last 20 years
we discussed earlier (mumbled) certainly helpful, um, and (both talking)
Champion/ It's in here.
Hayek/ ...but I don't know whether past is prelude and I know you aren't perfectly equipped to
predict what the weather will be over the next 20 years, but whatever guidance you can
give us between now and the next meeting on, in terms of your thoughts regarding what
to expect, and I'm not talking you know day after tomorrow you know tsunami type stuff,
that was on TV the other night (laughter) um, but ... but some indication of you know...
how reliable, or how much can we rely on... on... on these numbers. You know, 150 days
over the last 20 years, if we'd had 100 -plus one it would have been six, if we'd had a
500- plus -one infrastructure would have been zero. You know, forecasting... anything
you can do to help us sort of apply that to the future I think would be helpful.
Dobyns/ And are those numbers based on the revised Army Corps of Engineers post -2008 flood?
Fosse/ Those are numbers are ... are based on the past 20 years. So if we take the past 20 years
and we replay them, that's what we would expect.
Dobyns/ Oh, okay. That's ... okay.
Fosse/ Yep. That's... that's our best guess at this point.
Hayek/ I know, and I know it's best guess, but I mean I ... at some point the... the... the... the
quantity of inconvenience, if you will, um, marries up with some level of protection,
urn ... I mean I think, and this is just how the mind naturally tries to figure these things
out, you know, how much ... how much impact versus how much do you get, and ... and
what risks and how much, you see where I'm...
Mims/ Cost and (both talking)
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Hayek/ Cost and all ... all of those things, yeah, I mean, so ... that would help me.
Fosse/ Okay! Well, Ron has been keeping track of all the things that you've requested for next
time. In the interest of time, I won't ask him to read those back to you right now, but
we'll compare notes and make sure that we ... we've done that. If you think of other
things over the next two weeks that you'd like us to address, please route those to us
through the City Manager and he'll get those ... those to us, uh, so that we can be prepared
at the next meeting and talk in more detail. Anything else before we wrap up? (noises on
mic) Okay!
Hayek/ Thanks for coming into town! (several talking)
Mims/ Thank you.
Hayek/ All right, let's try to...
Throgmorton/ It's great to see graduates of the Urban and Regional Planning Program here too.
Steve and Kyle. Oops, Mark. What am I thinking! (laughter) (several speaking away
from mic) Oh! (laughs)
Dobyns/ Nice self - serving plug, Jim! (laughter)
Information Packet Discussion:
Hayek/ Like to see the grades you gave these guys back (several talking and laughing) Uh, all
right, so we have two info packets, one from September 5th. Why don't we go through
that real quickly. Anything there?
Mims/ Um, I would just make a quick comment on IP5, the invitation to the Synthetic Drug
Awareness Open House.
Champion/ Right, right!
Mims/ Um, September 26th from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. This is at the Coralville Public Library.
Hayek/ We'll raz Adam later, but uh, saw the memo on his good news.
Dobyns/ Uh huh.
Hayek/ Anything else on the September 5?
Dobyns/ So I had a question. I just wanted to verify on IP4 the letter to other jurisdictions
regarding the Animal Shelter. And I ... I checked with the City, uh, Manager's office. Is
that basically we decided we were going to include geothermal, and ... basically it wasn't
an ask, it was sort of a tell. I mean, this is sort of what we're going to do. But, I ... I
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guess, Geoff, if you ... you mentioned to me the other jurisdictions have a protection
factor in terms of how much they may pay if things go over the budget.
Markus/ We set a maximum budget for it.
Dobyns/ All right.
Markus/ So if it comes in less than that, um ... the rest of the communities will participate in it. If
it comes in more than that the understanding is we'll go back and make an additional ask.
Dobyns/ Okay. All right. Thank you.
Hayek/ Okay. September 12t"
Throgmorton/ Uh, the KXIC interviews. I volunteer for the Stn
Dobyns/ I'm tomorrow.
Mims/ I'll do October 16t"
Hayek/ I can probably do the 25tH
Champion/ I can do whatever's left.
Karr/ September 25t ", Matt? September 25t ".
Hayek/ Yes I can do that (several talking)
Payne / Who did the 16th?
Mims/ I did.
Karr/ Mims did the 16tH
Payne/ Is anybody done the 91"?
Karr/ The 91h is Throgmorton.
Payne/ How bout the 2nd then? Is it open?
Karr/ October 2nd is open.
Payne/ I'll do that one.
Karr/ Thank you.
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Hayek/ Okay.
Council Time & Meeting Schedule:
Dobyns/ I just wanted to bring up this actually dovetails with our public session discussion, uh,
about the ped mall, but it just happens to be in this information packet about the FUSE
program.
Champion/ Uh huh.
Dobyns/ Um, I took a look at that. I think Chrissy, um, Canganelli kind of mentioned that.
Um ... and I ... I was-evidently Geoff was telling me that we're participating in an
evaluation of this program, as far as the City — no commitment yet. Um ... but I think it's
a nice, you know, really good program. I think it's sort of, uh, goes for people who aren't
you know fully service resistant, um, and uh, I just ... I guess I'm excited about the City
continuing to work with these groups to evaluate it.
Mims/ Yeah, I thought it was very interesting. Thanks for mentioning that.
Dobyns/ Yep.
Throgmorton/ Yeah, agreed.
Hayek/ Okay. Council time. I had several things but I think I'm going to ... table those for
another time. Anybody else? Okay, meeting schedule.
Throgmorton/ I ... I'd like to thank Marian and all of you for rescheduling the strategic planning
session to November 25. I know it created all sorts of difficulties so I appreciate what
you've done, especially Marian.
Payne/ Did we get an email saying that's when it was going to be for sure?
Karr/ It's on your tentative (several talking) you did, but it's also on your tentative schedule.
Payne/ I never read that!
Karr/ You never read that?
Dobyns/ Also it is (several talking)
Payne/ ....on my calendar and then they're there. It never gets updated (several talking and
laughing) So it's on the 25th
Karr/ It is on the 25th. 1:00. At Terry Trueblood Rec ... Recreation Area lodge. And I can put a
reminder in there as well, as we get closer.
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Hayek/ Good idea (several talking and laughing) All right. Pending work session topics?
Upcoming events, Council invites?
Throgmorton/ I'd like to go to that, uh, CBJ luncheon, Marian.
Karr/ Okay.
Throgmorton/ I don't know what I need to do other than just tell you.
Mims/ You already have me down for it, don't you?
Karr/ Uh huh.
Mims/ Okay.
Bramel/ Tomorrow night the City's hosting the, um, streetscape project that they'll be holding in
the Sheraton from 4:00 to 8:00. I invited a bunch of, uh, students, contacted the Student
Body (several talking) and then Geoff will be meeting with the, uh, UISG Senate next
Tuesday to show those plans off (noises on mic) give us a little bit more in depth stuff so
that should be good.
Hayek/ Okay. Wrap up. Thanks for your hard work and we'll be back here in a few minutes.
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