Welcome to Bismarck Insights with Mayor Mike Schmitz, a transparent and engaging conversational dive into meaningful topics impacting local government in Bismarck, North Dakota. Bismarck Insights is dedicated to removing barriers between the city of Bismarck and the citizens we serve every day. Welcome to Bismarck Insights. I'm Bismarck Mayor Mike Schmitz, and today we're gonna focus on 2025 construction projects in the city of Bismarck. And with me I have city engineer Gabe Schell. Gabe, thank you for coming back. Um, you know, we've got a lot of stuff going on in the last few years. And maybe we should just give a little rap on what happened in 2024 and then we'll dive into what we've got going this summer which has already started because we're already in June-ish um but let's talk about some of the things we accomplished in 24 and, and what we got looking forward here a little bit. Sure, yeah, so in 2024, uh, obviously a very busy construction season both from, from our perspective as well as some of the other agencies that do work in our community. Uh, some of our highlight projects would have been our South Washington Street reconstruction project from Burley Avenue North to the South Bismarck drainage ditch. That project was funded, uh, primarily by 5 cent sales tax for the arterial road construction reconstruction, converting that two lane roadway into a multi-lane facility, uh, with and also the ability to put, uh, roundabouts at the intersection of Burley Avenue and South Washington Street as well as a signal at, uh, along the corridor as well and that and that actually extended a little bit into Burley Avenue. More east and west, but that, that was a big project. I, I, I drove it a lot. Yeah, another component of that was widening the two lane roadway that was Burley Avenue with ditches and put a three lane roadway still rural sense and then still a, a, uh, roadway with uh high ditches to convey storm water, uh, but that was another component of that just to kind of put a final touch on that area of town here for the next foreseeable future. And did the city itself have any other major projects in 24 or because people always talk about construction and and what's going on and there are a lot of things that we really didn't control. Sure, there's always projects happening and and really uh what could be a minor project in our eyes could be a major project for that person who's being delayed for that week of time in front of their house or that months of time in front of on that corridor that they usually drive on any given year we'll do about $3 million worth of water main replacements and and that's usually something that really touch. Is everywhere in the the older parts of towns, the area south of divide, um, north of of Main Avenue at primary those areas that we go in and and replace those water mains. So because that's in the middle of town, it might not, uh, affect you where you live, but it might affect you on your, on your drive as you're making your way across our community. And then of course we know North Dakota DOT's got a big project that started last year. yep, so DOT is in still in the 2nd year of their multi-year construction project. Of the exit 161 interchange replacement at uh Expressway Expressway, or Centennial Road, depending on which side of the interstate you're on, that's about a $50 million project that the DOT is is running and is leading. Uh, we have a coordination role to make sure that our fire trucks can get through, make sure our water mains and sewer mains still work, make sure our, our traffic signals work on either side of these interconnected corridors, uh, but by and large the DOT is handling that one, and then they'll bring us in when, when there's city specific questions they may have. So now moving forward and we're already like I said we're already in the construction season for 2025, but what do we got going on? We got, and I know of stuff, but citizens probably don't. Sure, there, there's a whole smattering of things. We'll do about $10 million a year of of maintenance projects is what we have for our asphalt and concrete roadways, uh, a project that the little. Many in the commuter probably seeing right now is on South 3rd Street where we're doing a concrete pavement repair on South 3rd Street between Bismarck Expressway and Main Avenue. So it's a corridor that a lot of people drive. Um, thankfully it's, it's 5 lanes, so we can use up a couple of those while the contractor makes repairs and still move a decent amount of traffic safely through the corridor, uh, but we'll see delays because that's a corridor that might, uh, see, you know, traffic, uh, obviously impacts, uh, because of the construction activities that are occurring, um, thankfully other roads in the court in the area that the some of that traffic can get moved out to. Um, we'll also do a fair amount of asphalt road replacements. Uh, we'll in those sorts of projects we'll replace the. Uh, wearing course at the top couple of inches of asphalt if that's the right solution, but if that asphalt's already to the end of its useful life, we'll, uh, blend the entire asphalt and subgrade base into a new cement stabilized, uh, subgrade and then put a new surface and, uh, wearing course on top of that so it find ourselves with a good solution that leaves the curb intact and really we can get in and out of there in about a couple weeks' time. I should say our contractor can get in and out of there in a couple weeks' time and and move on to the next spot. So how's that South 3rd Street project funded? So South 3rd Street would be funded through two parts. The, the primary part would be through special assessments that we would bring in the adjacent properties along that corridor, uh, for that project as well as any of the other maintenance type projects that we have in our community. There's also a city contribution that is presented in any of these maintenance projects. We'll fund generally about 25% through sales tax on maintenance activities such as a concrete payment repair project. And on the heavier, more expensive intensive reconstruction projects we will contribute 70% of that cost, uh, so that it lowers the special assessment cost to those adjacent landowners all funded through the first penny of sales tax. OK. And besides Third Street, what else do we have going on? Our, our big one that we have this summer is our East Century Avenue reconstruction project that starts at about Centennial Road and goes out to the east, uh, so it might be a corridor that people don't use unless they're in that area. Uh, but it's definitely in our growth area in our community. Northeast Bismarck is where we'll anticipate a lot of our future growth. So we felt real comfortable with the, uh, investment of, of increased infrastructure in that location, taking that two lane. Ditch section roadway similar to what we've seen on some of these other corridors that we've converted into a multi-lane urban facility. So when this project's done on East Century Avenue, uh, you'll find it very similar to the other segments of Century from about Valley Forge to, uh, Centennial Road, where it's a flush 5 lane roadway with a trail on one side, sidewalk on the other, uh, corridor lighting and, and some street trees. And, and again that is largely funded through. Sales tax, some state and federal funding as well, So on this project, it's funded primarily through the 50 cent is that correct? sales tax for arterial road construction and reconstruction. We did also receive a $2 million grant from the North Dakota Department of Transportation with state dollars through their flexible transportation program. And then the last aspect that we have is funded through our water utility. It's a good opportunity when we are digging up a corridor, putting a new road. If there's any water main repairs that we would need to make or any extensions of those, those water lines, it's kind of the opportune time to do that while we have the, the corridor under construction, uh, so that's funded through both the water utility rates that our ratepayers pay as well as a grant from the Department of Water Resources and speaking of water. I know there's another there's some replacements occurring as we talked already in the in the core of town I'll call it or the older part of town, um, because I've, I've driven by it and it's the Custer Park area. There's, there's water being replaced there. Is there other utilities also being replaced at the same time? So the, the project you're referring to is our cast iron water main replacement project, and that's a project, uh, that will do about $3 million worth every, every year, generally speaking, which gets us about 2 miles worth of water main. Which is interesting to think of 2 miles seems like a really long stretch, but when you break it down by blocks, it might just be. A couple of blocks worth or a neighborhood worth to kind of get up to that that 10,000 ft of water main. uh, so this is the areas where we have smaller diameter, older cast iron water mains, and we replace that through a technique that uh pulls in and bursts the existing pipe and kind of bursts it out of the way and then it pulls in a brand new pipe behind it and then all the excavation that we have to do is that the two. The bore pits to receive and, and, um, inject that uh the trenching device as well as then reconnect any of our utility service connections. So in every house or every business that needs service we'd have to dig a hole in that location to, you know, disconnect them if you will from the old line and reconnect them to now the new line that's in place. We're not necessarily tearing up the entire street to accomplish this, which. Save some money. Yeah, that we found that this is a, a more cost efficient way to replace the water main. You really just have a contractor that specialized in that activity, get in there, do that work and get out of there, uh, subsequently, maybe the year or the following year after that is probably the time that we would look to replace the store excuse me, the, the pavement structure and maybe do a. Bullet overlay or a full reconstruct of the roadway if that's what's desired. So really we'll work hand in hand with our utility, uh, public works utility operations folks in city here to make sure that whatever we're planning for the roads makes sense of what they're planning for the water main and if we have to accelerate or or decelerate maybe the timing of one of those projects we do that in tandem then. OK, so do you have any other major projects that are planned for the rest of the summer of 2025 into the fall, uh, that we haven't talked about at the moment. You know, I, I'd say any of the projects that we have, they might be under under contract right now, but some of these in particular, let's say our, our street maintenance project might have 10 units, so it might be 10 areas in town. Uh, that will be impacted by this. And so if you're in the south part of town, that's where our contractors working on, on Wachter Avenue. That's where they started their work and they really didn't do any of the work on the north side of town. So we'll likely see as the summer progresses the work in the south side of town, you know, finish up, get buttoned up, and then the contractor move out to some of those other units. So if you see construction in front of your home now, hopefully that's we'll be out of there and then move on to someone else and we'll push that impact and that activity to another place in our community. And um looking to the future, we have a couple of things that are out there obviously we always have, you know, the arterial road type uh roadwork coming up and we have a plan or a project that's scheduled to start. Next year, probably or shortly thereafter, that's Parkway, yep, so our, our next project that would be funded through that half cent sales tax, uh, program for arterial and and for reconstruction and construction would be our Tyler Parkway extension project that would take Tyler Parkway from its existing dead end at Valley Drive and connect it across the Tyler Cooley. Uh, to Cockburn Road over in Elk Ridge area, so it's about, uh, 4000 or foot, so connection of these two dead end segments of Tyler Parkway that would allow for increased connectivity for the community, uh, increased or improved response time for emergency services, and, uh, with that some additional parks and rec related facilities, trails being constructed as well. OK, and that, and that is huge because I think it will save us or delay the timeline for having to probably put a fire station in a in a quadrant and. Increase the traffic flow and hopefully not disrupt the neighborhood too much, yep, so any time that the fire looks to to respond, they're driving on the roads that we that we have and and the routes that are available to them. So the location of their fire station on Tyler Parkway currently they can get more. I guess depth into the community on that same response time by having a more direct route to get to those locations. So instead of going through a bunch of neighborhoods and, and taking 2 miles to get to the location, this would be a more direct route for them to take maybe 1 mile to get to that same location. OK, and talk about the house and sales tax we're probably gonna have to look at what needs to happen in the future as that goes, but do we have other projects that we can maybe still fund or are we, are we kind of getting to the end of that funding stream? Yep, so that the half sales tax that was passed in 2018 had a 10 year sunset on it, so we would expect the last revenue if left untouched in 2029. So by our estimations we would anticipate we'd still have about $13 million of that program that is would be funded but without a project identified for it so we'll still have a commission decision of what to do with that remaining balance at this point in time or if there's an extension or some other, you know, uh, discussion on what to do with that program, uh, but ultimately we've invested so far about $67 million by the end of 2025, um, in these 6 to 7 miles worth of arterial road projects. So by and large it's. A very successful program for our community and we've been able to get some matching dollars to enhance those improvements from various other agencies, correct? Yep, so when we've taken our local dollars, we've, we've pledged those with some of the federal and state dollars that we've been able to secure, uh, something to the tune of about $18 million that we've secured in that realm too. So it's taken our local dollars and stretched them out even further, uh, without the need to use a special assessment on any of the adjacent properties for that improvement, and I think it's important for people to understand that because. That that is actually a way for us to stretch those federal dollars or state dollars as the case may be. Uh, we have other projects that at least we've talked about at the commission table, um, and, and certainly as a community, we, we know are out there and I'll bring it up and it may not be necessarily a topic we're ready for, but I'm gonna bring it up. It's flood control and protection. Um, where are we at with what we're trying to do in South Bismarck or just general flood protection for Bismarck? Sure, so what happened in 2024 is the the city adopted a new floodplain, uh, uh, that the FEMA and our state required us So in the end we, we took a lot of what was in South Bismarck to do. that was protected by a gate structure on South Washington's, uh, drainage ditch. But because FEMA didn't recognize that as effective flood and certified flood protection, they really project the flood plain back into the heart of Bismarck. So we've developed projects and and scenarios and alternatives that would be able to get FEMA certified flood protection for South Bismarck and have received federal dollars from FEMA to enact those improvements. We're currently working on the design of what that would look like. Uh, we've approached the state in the previous. By any of the state legislature did receive dollars towards the construction of these improvements and are working towards finalizing that design so that we can then go back and and and either bid the project or uh go back to the state and ask for additional resources before we commit fully to to that activity and part of that discussion at the state level was how does this really fit and how do we, how are we proving out to be flood protection. Um, and so a lot of, a lot of work on your team's staff to actually prove to the state that this is flood protection. Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of government oversight to access those dollars. You need to prove to those agencies that this is for the intended purpose. So whether it's the FEMA dollars or it's the state dollars, each of those will have requirements that we'll have to work through to prove that this is providing effective FEMA certified flood protection. And if so, we'd be able to then effectively change that map at the conclusion of the project to remove much of the much of the property that was added in 2024 and pull that out of the flood plain, but that would be a multiple years from now sort of discussion because the improvements would have to not only be bid and and designed but actually constructed and surveyed. Before we could certify to FEMA that our citizens are now protected from that level of flood protection, and the goal here is somewhere 1000 structures or more probably impacted. That's why it's so important. Yep, we brought in 1000 structures into that flood plain. I shouldn't say the floodplain brought those in. It wasn't necessarily the city Bismarck driven. Um, but yeah, 1000 structures, approximately many of those, uh, manufactured home park locations. We have some critical infrastructure facilities, some substations, education facilities, and medical facilities. So there's a lot of important property within that area that, uh, would be inundated in accordance to to FEMA's flood plain map. So that's one of the reasons that we're trying real hard to see what we could do to resolve that. And so skip back to roads because that's your, one of your primary focuses. What, what road projects do you see that we should need to be looking forward to, uh, be prepared for, I guess, uh, beyond 2026? That that you've kind of already identified might be projects to look at. Sure, so past 2026, I mean, we'll, we'll continue to invest in our roadways. That's always our number one priority is taking care of our existing network and to do that in a manner that keeps our roadway condition at the level that our citizens are accustomed to requires a significant investment, um, so we'll continue to use our long range planning tools that we have every 5 years or so we will have an. Entire inventory of our community and its payment condition inventoried, uh, and then we'll use that to help inform what our capital improvement plan should look like so we can properly identify the projects and then budget for them accordingly um so really at any given time we would expect to touch that roadway, um, every roadway with some sort of improvement hopefully it's a lower cost preventive maintenance crack ceiling, uh, crack, uh, mitigation. Uh, surface coat sort of treatment, but other times it's a more expensive reconstruction sort of facility. But like I said, our main goal is always to repair the facilities that we have. It does provide some fun opportunities to take into account some of the other maybe planning documents that we have out there that we've produced or that have been produced on our behalf to incorporate other improvements whether it's a safety improvement, uh, a roundabout, a new sidewalk here or there that when we're already uh. Exploding that intersection and and obliterating the entirety of it, it really doesn't matter the cost to put it back. It's gonna cost the same to put it back so we could put it back with maybe a curve line that's a little bit wider if that's the goal, or maybe a curb line that's a little bit narrower if that's the goal, uh, but we have a lot of sunk costs and we can kind of recreate the city in the image that we want it to be. Sure, um, on the sunset sunsetting sales tax, there were some additional roadways that were identified that have not been touched yet. Is that correct? Correct. Some of the the corridors that we haven't. Uh, really improved or touched that we would be eligible for the half cent sales tax would be 57th Avenue between Washington Street and State Street, really the State Street corridor from Calgary Avenue north to 1804. The State Highway 1804 71st Avenue is an eligible corridor and the Main Avenue corridor from. I think 26th Street or might be from Expressway uh to the east to 66. They're all eligible corridors that we could uh put investments on, and that's really the kind of the analysis that we'll be performing to understand of those corridors where is the most pressing need and where do we invest those dollars. And that's obviously one of the ways we fund it. What are other ways that we fund some of our roadway network improvements, repairs, maintenance, and so on? Sure, when we get to the the project level, I mean the biggest funding sources that we use are are one penny of sales tax that we have for infrastructure and the city commission so far has used those dollars to push that and and subsidize the special assessments that would be used for those maintenance activities. So the accompanying the special assessments is a hefty dose of sales tax. We also look to our federal. Partners when the state DOT has grant opportunities or even the allotment that might be given to the Bismarck Mandan area, we try to prioritize those maintenance activities and and maintenance dollars first so that we have, uh, taking care of our network as the number one priority before we consider expanding to that network. So the combination of special assessments, sales tax, and then either federal or state aid is is where we primarily make up our funding revenue sources. So as we look to the future challenges, opportunities for our city streets. I think challenges, opportunities are always, uh, the fact that it freezes and thaws here so it's, it's, it pains me every single time we, we do a perfectly great project and then we have a winter and it's not just the plow damage it's the fact that that ground is moving, it's freezing, it's thawing, uh, anytime we have subsequent freezing and thawing events, it just ages that roadway to a higher degree than what you might find in Arizona or even in Alaska. So anywhere that you just have a lot of those free thaw cycles, you'll see a lot of road degradation. So unfortunately anytime we do a project, we know we. Have to be back there again, so it's our goal to try to do this as efficiently as we can and make sure we're making the correct preventive maintenance activity at the right time of that payment's life so that we, uh, aren't, you know, ripping up perfectly good infrastructure, but we're also not waiting for that infrastructure to go bad and have to have a unnecessarily high improvement strategy. So that's always the challenge is trying to find the right tool at the right time, um, for that particular facility and regardless of roads or water mains or sewers, whatever that facility is, that's always our goal. So from your perspective as a city engineer, what, what things do we need to be looking for? what things should the city be trying to figure out the best way to effectively, efficiently and cost benefit wise accomplish uh whether it's for your own tools or measuring the roads, whatever it is? Sure, I, I think the, the sustainable funding sources are always an important thing if we knew every year that we would be getting. a set amount of federal dollars to use, we would be able to better plan for how to use those dollars, but it is subject to change, so those dollars aren't always assured. Sometimes the state Department of Transportation will come in and and and do a project in our community and that's great, and we love it when they do that, but we don't have a guarantee that that will happen. So there's always that risk, that outstanding risk that's out there of we think that the feds will come in and and repair these things, but ultimately they are our roads. We have to maintain them. If there's no federal money that's our. Obligation. So for us to find ways to have a sustainable program, whether it's through a a street utility fee or some other funding mechanism that would allow us to have uh a revenue source that's identified for those types of improvements that have some uncertainty in their funding, that is obviously a very interesting topic to have with the community and and I would have a lot of interest in that and and that would if there is sustainable funding, I think it does help from a cost standpoint because it's easier to plan and maybe even bid. And when it's not urgent, yeah, there, there's definitely a, a cost savings component with that. We're able to plan the right tool at the right time. Uh, when we do use special assessments, there's cost to, to borrow. There's cost for the bonding that go into that process, and we pass those costs on to who's paying the special assessments. So some of those costs wouldn't have to happen, uh, the carrying costs for, for that infrastructure project if, if we weren't using special assessments. So there's, there's benefits and there's obviously cons, uh, with any of those funding sources, but from special assessments, it's definitely one of the challenges. So Gabe, how do citizens find out what's going on? What's the best way for them to know where street activity is happening that might cause them to have a delay in their commute? Sure, we got, we got a lot of different opportunities to to discuss our activities with the public. Uh, we try to, when we know what's coming, when we know what's happening, we try to get advanced notice out so our our street maintenance improvement districts because. Are funded through special assessments we'll write every single landowner in that area a letter prior to the project even being bid or awarded letting them know of this project and what to expect. We'll do the same things with our water main improvement projects, uh, because we will be setting them up for temporary water for a period of time. We do some extra engagement, letting them know we're doing this. This is what it'll look like this is what to expect. This is who to contact, etc. um, for more of the general. Public, we'll use a couple of different methods, one being, uh, direct information on our website at biismarckndD.gov, um, usually slashres gets you all the, the headlines and news and all the information that we're we're promoting at the time, but we'll use our media partners to send out press releases that'll get picked up by the local media saying what that activity or that lane closure or that road closure might look like for the next, uh, little bit of time. Uh, and then lastly I think our, our final component is just on the roadway with the construction signing that we have, the sign that says road closed is obviously a very uh indicative, uh, message that that road is closed in front of you and find another route. We try to put out digital message board signs before we get to that point, letting people know on that corridor that might commute that on a daily basis but maybe don't live in the area. That come XYZ date that this road will be closed and you'll have to go a different way or you'll have some lanes closed and expected delay so we try to get that information out before we do it so that the, the traveling public can make accommodations in their daily schedule and when they go to the website, the, the maps, I won't call it interactive, but there's a pretty good map that they can pull up and actually see even if it's not going on yet. Where that construction is going to be so they can start to plan ahead of time. Yeah, we have, we have two features that I'm that we would like to maintain an update on our website. The one is kind of all of our construction projects that we'll see in 2025. So it's just, it's a by their, their construction type. So if it's a water main replacement, a street rehab, a fixing. Traffic signal, whatever the thing is, I have that just geospatially referenced so the citizen can go in and figure out what is it that's being done in this area. Uh, that's more of a global, not up to the minute or even up to the second. That's everything that we plan on doing this summer or this construction season. Another tool we have on the same website just goes through our lane closures and our current. Uh, road restrictions that we have. So if someone's just curious about where do we have current lane restrictions, we have a map on our website that says on 3rd Street we have a lane closure on XYZ Street. You might have a full road closure, and here's the D2 route to get around this, this activity that's occurring somewhere in our community. Gabe, is there anything else we should share with our citizens? I would say the, the final thing would just be as you make your way into those construction zones, uh, to go safely through them. I know it might be a. for you, but that's the work site. That's the job site for someone else, and we wanna make sure everyone's safe. Our, our workers, our citizens, our community, anyone who's in these construction zones, we just wanna make sure everyone's safe and to do that, it's, it's being alert and not being on your phone and paying attention to the signs and being paying attention to your surroundings. And I'm gonna throw one last one in, and it's not engineering related, but I do ask citizens, please watch the speeds, traffic signs, um, you know there are pedestrians walking there are cars that are trying to traverse through and. I've, I've come upon a couple of accidents in the last couple of weeks that I'm like, oh my gosh, those are pretty high speed, so let's, let's try to respect everybody else's property as well, please. Yeah, so it's a great, great thing to do is travel safely everywhere you go. Gabe, thank you for sharing a bit of an update on what's going on in our community from road construction and water utility infrastructure rebuild. OK, thanks for having me. Thank you for watching Bismarck Insights with Mayor Mike Schmitz. If you have specific topics or questions you'd like addressed in future episodes, email Ms Schmitz at Bismarcknd.gov. Or call the City of Bismarck at 701-355-1300. To learn more about the city of Bismarck, visit BismarckndD.gov or follow us on a variety of social media channels by searching Bismarck NDGov. Bismarck Insights is a collaboration between Dakota Media Access and the City of Bismarck. 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