OLDS — Council has approved a plan to move money from one intersection improvement project to another, due to increased costs in one case and fewer in the other.
The two projects are installation of traffic signals, as well as left and right turning signals at 70th Avenue at Highway 27 and a traffic roundabout to be installed at the intersection of 68th Street and Highway 2A.
A memo in council’s May 10 agenda package noted that the cost of the 70th Avenue/Highway 27 project was pegged to cost $1.4 million. It would be financed by a couple of provincial grant programs.
However, since then costs for that project have increased to $1.84 million.
The memo said increase is due to unanticipated requirements from the provincial government’s Highways and Transportation ministry as well as increased construction costs.
“Throughout detailed design in conjunction with Alberta Transportation, the overall length of the project along Highway 27 increased,” the memo said.
In addition, “Alberta Transportation required us to mill and overlay the entire length of the scope of work which we did not anticipate doing at time of making the estimates.”
The memo also said the largest construction cost increase was in the cost of signal arms and electrical work.
“These items are in high demand and are an eight to 12-week lead time minimum,” the memo said.
The total cost of the roundabout project was pegged at $6.39 million.
Of that figure, $3 million is to be funded through a provincial government Strategic Transportation Infrastructure Program (STIP) grant.
When all the costs were worked out, at $2.28 million, the town’s portion ended up about $480,000 less than anticipated.
So finance director Sheena Linderman suggested moving $440,000 from the 68th Street roundabout project to the 70th Avenue project.
Coun. Heather Ryan noted that resulted in a difference of $40,000. She asked what would happen with that money.
Linderman said the town would just not use up as much of the provincial Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) money as anticipated if that turns out to be the case.
“Excellent, good idea. Then we’ll have that available down the road," Mayor Mike Muzychka said.
Some residents have expressed alarm about the town spending big sums of money like this, but town officials have said the two projects have been on the radar for some time and if they don’t use that government grant money this year, they lose it.
