City hears bridge-design cost and underpass insurance hurdles; street‑paving bids planned

City Manager updated the council on several capital and maintenance items: the Arizona Department of Transportation's bridge project (a roughly $4,000,000 effort in which the city is a half owner) has incurred an additional engineering-design invoice of about $14,000 that the city can seek to be reimbursed for by Caltrans at approximately 88%; the manager said the bridge may be ahead of schedule and that a final concrete lift will smooth transitional bumps.

On the underpass project, the manager said BNSF's insurance requirements for contractors (quoted as $2,000,000 per incident and $5,000,000 cumulative) are causing delays because the contractor is being asked to secure an expensive policy (the contractor has estimated a $20,000 cost), and staff are working to resolve the issue. The city plans to go out to bid shortly for street paving and will offer private parties the ability to join a larger paving tranche to reduce unit costs for driveways or parking-lot repaving.

Council moved and approved the payment related to bridge design work; staff will continue negotiating the underpass insurance terms with BNSF and proceed with paving procurement.