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As the Triphammer Road repaving project is underway Village of Lansing Trustees awarded a $61,417.50 contract Monday for striping the road.  'Striping' is the painted lines that define lanes, shoulders, bicycle paths, crosswalks, and so on.  But with only one bid to choose from, the Village will pay at least twice what it could have cost.

"It's a lot," Mayor Donald Hartill told the Trustees.  "Normally it would be $20,000 to $30,000 for that type of striping.  It's directly related to the very rigid liability specification.  The specifications were written more tightly than they have been in the past.  We have a new engineer who is managing it.  He was following 'the' book, whereas there is 'a' book that's adequate.  We didn't catch that."

The roughly $815,000 project involves milling about two inches off the top of the old road, repaving the road and restoring striping and crosswalks.  The milling part is largely complete.  The repaving will take 6020 tons of blacktop.  An additional $12,500 is budgeted for new LED street lights that are expected to save ongoing electricity and maintenance costs.

Hartill explained that you pay for striping in 'lane miles'.  He said there are roughly six lane miles in the Triphammer Road project, that includes striping on the main road and a few side roads that have also been milled, including Pyramid Drive and Oakcrest Road.  He said that if the contract had been worded differently it is likely there would have been two bids to choose from, and that they would have come back at the lower cost.


Hartill added that some money may be saved by giving the milled materials to the Town of Lansing in exchange for the Town Highway Department carting the material away.  He was not sure whether removing the material is included in the contract with the paving contractor, but said he would double check to make sure the Village is not charged for that work.  He said the material will be used by the town to repave roads with lighter traffic.

"We're providing some material to our friends from the north in exchange for some trucking," Hartill explained.  "When you mill off the top inch and a half of this roadway, that's a lot of stuff.  Several of the Town trucks plus our own truck moving that stuff to the Town.  It will be used, probably, for their oil and stone sealing operations on some of their secondary roads.  It's OK to reuse it on light surface, but to reuse it on Triphammer Road where we have very heavy traffic, the stone, when you reheat it and combine it with asphalt, gets microcracks and is weakened.  It doesn't last as long."

Hartill says the contract was worded to require more stringent insurance coverage than may have been needed.  It includes a guarantee from the contractor that covers situations like an accident in an area wheree the striping isn't applied quite right.  That higher level of insurance accounts for the higher cost.

Hartill said that with the project already under way there is not enough time to put the contract out for bid a second time.  The board unanimously awarded the contract.

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