The Williams City Council waived the formal bid process and awarded a $1.08 million contract to Bennett Engineer Services to design the E Street improvement project.
The project will include various roadway and pedestrian safety improvements, including widening the street, a raised landscape median, a center turn lane, curbs, gutters, and sidewalks, bike lanes, drainage improvements, and a roundabout at the intersection of E and 11th Streets.
The project has been in the works since 2021, and will be constructed with a $10.6 million grant from Active Transportation Program.
The Active Transportation Program (ATP) was created by Senate Bill 99 and Assembly Bill 101 to encourage walking and biking, increase safety and mobility for motorized and non-motorized devices (wheelchairs), advance efforts to achieve greenhouse gas reduction goals, enhance public health, and provide a broad spectrum of projects to benefit everyone.
Bennett Engineering did the initial conceptual design for the E Street Complete Street Project and submitted the grant application to the state, said Public Works Director Cole Esenwein.
Esenwein recommended the City Council waive the bid process in the best interest of the city and to save time.
“We don’t have a lot of time to get all the work done in order to request the funds be encumbered and obligated from the State Transportation Commission by the deadline of 2025-26,” Esenwein said.
The City Council hopes to have preliminary engineering for the project done by January and environmental review completed by next summer.
City officials want to get the project design and estimate done by summer 2025 so as to get the construction out to bid and underway.
The $10.6 million grant is for the construction of the project only. The city’s share is $2 million, which covers Bennett’s contract. The remaining $966,606 will come from reserves, officials said.
Keith Rhodes is the project manager, replacing contracted city engineer Trin Campos, who left Bennett to work for California Department of Transportation.
Rhodes is new to the firm but has three decades of transportation engineering and project delivery experience.
“I’ve worked with him before when he worked for other firms before Bennett,” Esenwein said. “He has a great track record; he’s got a good reputation in the industry.” ■