City Council approves engineering agreement for Commercial Street rebuild

The Weiser City Council on Dec. 11 approved a $300,000 engineering agreement with Keller and Associates for the reconstruction of E. Commercial Street in Weiser.

 The council’s action was in anticipation of the final approval of a $2 million grant through ITD (Idaho Transportation Department), which is sponsored by the Local Highway Technical Assistance Council (LHTAC). 

 The City of Weiser applied for the grant in October of this year and was informed weeks ago of the likelihood that the grant will be awarded. 

 Since that time, according to Mayor Randy Hibberd, the city has received word that final approval has indeed been granted.

 “To give you some background, we are trying to speed the process along,” he said during the Dec. 11 regular monthly meeting. “We have received notification that we will probably be awarded $2 million for fixing up Commercial Street. It has to go before the ITD board for final approval, but we’ve had projects in the past where engineering has taken some time and we have ended up in the middle of construction season, trying to obtain bids … and so this is an effort toget the engineering contract approved ahead of time so we don’t have to wait for another meeting in order to get started.”

 Commercial Street connects two sections of Highway 95 and serves as a truck route through town. 

 The underlying problem with the street lies within its original construction, when specifications were not what they are today. 

 “It was made a long time ago and they didn’t build roads to the specs we have now,” Hibberd said in October. “We’ve got places where it’s soft and the asphalt just keeps breaking up and so what we would do is go in and tear it up and upgrade it to handle today’s weight capacities.”

 Back when the road was built, 10-wheeler semi-trucks were more commonplace, meaning they were lighter and didn’t cause as much wear and tear on roads and streets. 

 Weight depends on the type of truck and trailer, and what it’s hauling. Today, an 18-wheeler with triples (three trailers) can weigh up to 147,000 pounds. 

 “When they asphalted these roads in the beginning, they didn’t base them to today’s specifications, especially to take heavy traffic,” said Weiser Public Works Director Mike Campbell in October. “Today, we have a standard where you have your pit run granular base and x-amount of compaction for each level; I think it’s 12 inches of pit run, and then 6-12 inches of road base, and then you can put your asphalt on. Before, they put a road base over a layer of what they called clay base. Not all of it (Commercial Street) is bad, but in some places, it has a terrible base.”

 The city’s engineering firm, Keller and Associates, put the grant together.

 “It’s part of the federal infrastructure bill,” Hibberd explained further. “It comes from Department of Transportation funds and it’s for roadways that are ancillary to highways, but are affected by the highway.”

 Commercial Street qualifies because it is a truck route that connects Highway 95 to the 95 Spur that runs through Annex in Oregon. 

 The project, which would include new curbs and gutters,  includes replacement of the Monroe Creek Bridge located on Commercial Street, between E. Fifth and E. Sixth streets. 

 Back in October, Hibberd said he did not expect the grant to be awarded this year, but thought it could happen in 2024.

 “We were very fortunate on this,” he said. “There were over 130 projects that were submitted and only 37 were recommended for approval, so we are only one of 37.”

 Engineering design can commence now that final approval has been granted. bidding for the project is projected to open on June 1, 2024.

 It is not yet clear exactly when construction would commence, but could be sometime during summer 2024. Also not yet clear is a projected end date.