Noteworthy Posts

This will be a sticky post it will  stay on top for a while for visibility.  This post will point you to some posts that are aging but still very relevant  Look past this post for newer posts.

Be prepared for the project – Get Ready and Tree Removal
Contact Info – Contacts
Current Work Phase –  Winter Outlook and New Plan
City’s Restoration Program – Restoration
Property Line Definitions – More Stakes Coming and  Stakes Redefined
Definition of Stakes – see Stakes Tag item

Last Updated – 11/14/2010

Oct Public Works

As a regular part of public works meetings, they give a status report on various projects, on the surface the project has come a long way, but for those of us near city hall, where it all started over 2 years ago, its overdue to be finished.  And hearing things like maybe they can’t finish restoration when they are already way past due for Phase 1 West, is unwelcome.

View this document on Scribd

One more thing, if you want to see the animated delivery of the complaint, try this link http://www.solonohio.org/MediaCenter.aspx?CID=Solon-Government-Channel-20-1#player soon because they’ll probably move it around yet again.

Or go to the city web site, click Solon Videos, click Media Center, click Solon Govt Channel 20, look for Oct 5 Public Works, click it.  Grab the slider and move it to 1:28 (1 hr and 28 min).

Now back in the bad old LPV days, you could link directly to the video, this new improved “dummies” version of the web site lets you hunt for it.  A big step back for open government.

Personal Paving

FIRST DRAFT

Here are details into how paving outside the main roadway is done…

• Drive aprons and sidewalks are always concrete.
• Aprons have a wider 45 degree angle from the sidewalk to the street.
• Driveways are as they were before (concrete, asphalt, gravel).
• Sidewalks are 4″ thick, concrete drives & aprons are 6″ thick, non-reinforced.

Timing/Status

• Concrete drives are done on the north side to Windy Hill and on the south side to Huntington.
• Only a few asphalt drives were completed in the last four months near city hall, the rest from city hall to Huntington only have a base coat and have been waiting for over 3 months with no completion being discussed.
• Concrete aprons are done and sidewalks are being prepared from Huntington to Liberty.

Mythical Notification

While we constantly hear they will notify us in advance, there has been little improvement.  There was no notification about the drive aprons east of Huntington this last Monday or the mailboxes west of Huntington this Wed.

Mythical Day

We often hear that it will only take one day before the drive is usable, this is only partially true.  It’s one day after the pour, but there are several other steps that will keep you out of the driveway, performed by different contractors.  Each of these is likely to have you out of your drive for a day.

• Framing & apron base the apron
• Framing & sidewalk base
• Pouring Apron
• Pouring Sidewalk
• Grading drive
• Building drive base
• Framing drive
• Weather delays before pouring
• Pouring Drive or rough asphalt course
• Final (and much delayed) asphalt course

In practice you can easily experience more than one week of no access to your drive.

General Status

• Hardly any asphalt drives with final course
• Sidewalks incomplete on Sunnywood and Liberty
• Bainbridge Rd rough course open the full length
• Temp road mostly removed

What’s Next?

• Manhole covers are being raised to final level and will present hazards
• Final course of asphalt will be applied for the entire length, expect long delays
• Unexpected stop signs at intersection pose hazard as some people ignore them
• Watch for random construction workers waving you or oncoming traffic against traffic lights.

Reminders

• Watch this blog and the Quick Takes sidebar for the latest info that the city and county are still failing to provide
• Driving BB Rd will be very unpredictable, open at times, completely blocked at times as they lay the final course from SOM to the county line

Quick Takes

Take a look at the new sidebar features, Quick Takes will be updated more often now.

Keep an eye on the sidebar for the Quick Takes provided by the Tumblr microbloogging facility. Now that its summer, we can expect more activity from the contractors.

I can easily update the Quick Takes from my m0bile device to keep everyone informed. This wordpress blog will still be the place to watch for detailed info.

Also note that there is a Twitter feed (latest news) and the official county Twitter feed also in the sidebar.

After that is City News, the current contractor status report. Only the current report is available, to see older reports, see the Weekly Update companion page, to see other BB Rd pages that have been removed see the Solon Web Pages subpages on the companion site. You can see other city news under Residents / News, and you can subscribe to emails or cell msgs at the Notify Me page.

So bookmark this page and get all the info sources in one place.

July Public Works

For the first time in a while, this public works meeting was more exciting than the typical dry project status report.

You can find the video here, xx min to xx min.

Several residents discussed their concern for steep driveways.

Here are a list of issues that have arisen lately:

1. Flooding from silt filters
   In previous meetings the flooding caused by silt filters was claimed to be needed as a pollution control measure.  Now that grass is planted on both sides to Sharondale, the risk of pollution is minimal and the silt filters should be removed to prevent a road hazard.  John Busch said he’d follow up on this request.
2. Steeper drives
   While the road was lowered, the drives were to be cut back to allow for a reasonable grade.  In many cases the cut back results in a much steeper drive.
3. Steeper than Solon standards
   The Solon standards for drives are 8%, while the project exceeds that with grades up to 12%.  The county should follow the same standards as residents of the city are required to.
4. More concrete
   When residents complained to the county supervisor they were told they just “want more concrete”, this is an insult considerting the amount of concrete wasted on the 2.45 mi temp road, 5000 cu yds.  Residents are damaged twice, once by the temp road, and again by saving concrete at the expense of increased drive steepness.  This is a misplaced priority, perceived short term convenience over long term safety.
5. Some modifications were done, others have been refused
   This is hard to understand since the modification done isn’t as severe as those denied.
6. Drive inspections and standards
   are rigorously enforced by the city, however they are not being enforced on this project, furthermore it isn’t clear that the county is inspecting the work either.  It also isn’t clear if the county standards are up to the city’s standards ether.
7. Property damage
   Invisible fences and irrigation are being damaged, the city promised these would be restored in 2009-149, but then backed away from this, the county points to the contractor, meanwhile the resident is left with the expense.
8. West of Huntington Utilities
   ATT & Elec
   Unresolved who will pay
9. Planting quality and time
   Seeds aren’t taking on steep slopes.
   City said they’d have to wait till fall, but the contractor is still spraying straw and seeds now.
10. County Project
    We keep hearing this is a county project and while the “management of the project” is the county’s responsibility, this was established by the agreement city.  The county needs to abide by city laws and requests of the city, their “hands ARE NOT TIED”.
11. Free project
    We keep hearing this is a “free project”, we all should know better.  While the federal stimulus picks up the project cost up to $14 M (cost overruns would be shared by the county and the city), there have been other hard dollar costs.  First was the extraordinarily high cost of the project design $1.6 M that the city paid 40% of.  And then there are other items like sanitary sewers that the county did NOT participate in thus being 100% city costs, so in reality the city has and will pay more than the county, for that we should expect a seat at the table.
12. Project Savings
    The decision to move forward on this project was made in August 2008, 3 months before Obama was elected and the idea of federal stimulus road project was even dreamed of.  That means that the city was ready and willing to make a million dollar expenditure on this project, despite serious issues going on with the Pettibone project.  So where did this million dollar commitment get spent on?  Not for the betterment of the residents on Bainbridge Rd.

Summary:  We can’t focus on the greater good and allow residents who have sacrifieced for the greater good to be left out in the cold.

What needs to be done:

1. Stop calling this a “county project”, it affects the city’s residents who live on or use this important road.
2. Demand a “seat at the table”. The city had no qualms about demanding a a seat at the table when a resident tried to stop the temp road, how about some consistency and demand a seat to PROTECT the residents.

Status First Draft

July 2011 Status

It’s been two years since Phase 1 Utility work started, so technically the temp takes have expired, yet many of us don’t have the county restoration yet and will never see the city restoration.

Besides things being left to do, broken promises, there are issues such as steep driveways that don’t appear as they’ll be solved.

The pollution control turns our streets into small lakes after each rain, especially just west of Sharondale.  Yet the new sewers remained clogged even though —

Items that are completed

1. Phase 1 West except for the restoration
2. Phase 1A West and Phase 2A paving on the north side
3. North side sidewalks and aprons from city hall to Sunnywood

Closures

All closures have been longer than called for in the plan —

Coming next

1. Opening of Sunywood and Cloverly
2. Closing one lane of  Liberty at BB Rd
3. Removal of half the temp road making BB Rd a divided highway

STATUS ROUGH DRAFT

City Restoration

When this project’s destructive MOT with temp road was approved, it contained many promises that will never materialize…

First the promises of 2009-149 were diluted by chopping off all those on the north side, then they were further reduced by a request for residents to sign an invalid contract.

The result is only 18 of the 150 devastated properties were addressed.  So the city spent only $44,000 of the over 1 million it saved by rushing this project forward with stimulus money.

STATUS ROUGH DRAFT

County Restoration

Is proceeding at a very slow pace.  The county restoration process is as follows:

1. Grade tree lawn and temp take
2. Install sidewalks and drive aprons (no drive access)
3. Add top soil and grass seed to tree lawn and temp take
4. Cut back and grade drive  (no drive access)
5. Prep drive  (no drive access)
6. Pour or pave drive  (no drive access)
   No asphalt drives have been done yet
7. Install mailboxes (none have been done yet)

Three quarters of the concrete drives are done in Phase 1 West, but no asphalt drives have been done to date.

Sidewalks on the south side of BB Rd are still incomplete from Phase 1B West, while sidewalks are complete to Sunnybrook on the north side in Phase 1A East.

Status: DRAFT

Temp Road Phase 2

Building the temp road for Phase 1 was bad enough but despite pleas to reconsider, to learn from the faults of Phase 1, off they went pouring more wasted concrete for over 2 months this time.

They claim they will finish the project this year, yet last year’s lesson is clear, the overhead of putting down and tearing up the temp road will create enough overhead that something will have to give and that will be the restoration of treelawns and driveways.

STATUS: ROUGH DRAFT

OUPS

The Ohio Utility Protection Se rice is supposed to reduce the likelihood of  utility disruption.  Living on this road you have to wonder…

Looking closer you’ll find that OUPS actually doesn’t protect anything, they don’t even mark where the utilities are.  What they really are is a call center, they take calls and then they send the info to Utilities who contract with other companies to do the marking.  They also have a public education component.  No doubt you’ve heard “Call before you dig”.

Again looking further you’ll find that people should call before they dig, but they actually don’t have to.  See the law setting up this bureaucracy really has no teeth.  So if a construction company doesn’t call before they dig, no one goes to jail, maybe the utility will fine them the cost of the repair, but that may be just another expense of the job, factored in and weighed out.

Actually they don’t have to call every time they dig, there are some exceptions if they are grading less than 12 inches deep.

STATUS: FIRST DRAFT.

As we start 2011

The contractor beat the winter to

• Final pour of N Huntington and Huntington (on the south side)
• Opened the intersection of Huntingtons and Bainbridge Rd, with a 4 way stop
• Laid a temp road with portable concrete barriers (PCB) near the power lines (Culvert 10)

The contractor also

• Rebuilt Culvert 13 between Windy Hill and Creekside
• Worked on underground utilities in Phase 1 East and Phase 2

Now in early March the contractor has announced they will start building the temp road east of Huntington.