I-70 through Glenwood Canyon disaster

Announced today that the 550 closure I described will be postponed by CDOT due to objections from Durango, Silverton and Ouray.  No new schedule listed yet.  So Jeepers and other 4 wheelers rejoice.

That is a serious rockfall/debris flow. That will take some effort to design, let alone repair. I'm sure the engineers working on the repair are not sleeping much right now. 

First they have to dig it out so they can inspect it. Janel's going to keep me up to date on the RFQs :)

Fun! Hwy 82 - aka Independence Pass, aka one of the detours being used - is now closed due to mudslides. Colorado just leveled up in navigation difficulty.

I have a transmission being built in Denver. I might not see it for a little while. I probably wouldn't have gone through Independence, but this will just push a little more traffic on the other two routes.

Secondhand info through a friend and band mate - another member of the Montrose concert band sax section is an engineer, and he says he heard that there may be structural damage at Glenwood that could force closure for an extended period - months at least.  This is conjecture, Janel will know before the rest of us.

That is the worry. There's a chunk of the top deck broken off for sure. Janel won't really know details until the RFQ for the fix comes out.

I do know that CDOT is looking at hardening some of the detours ASAP to make them handle the high traffic volumes better, and you don't do that if it's only for a few days.

Went through there on the California Zephyr on my last visit to the USA in 2015 and was blown away by the scale of the engineering on both sides of the river. Apart from the Air and Space Museum that whole journey (San Fran to Boston by train) was the highlight of that trip. NHRA drags got crossed of my bucket list but to be honest won't be hurrying back.

Hope they get it fixed soon ...

In reply to Erich :

Thanks to Erich for starting this thread and all of you in the hive for your comments. Otherwise, I would have never heard about this. I just happened on this thread while in Copperopolis, Ca on 8/3. We planned to return to Ohio on 8/10. Based on the comments in the thread, we backtracked on I-80 out of Reno until Cheyenne, then took I-25 to Denver. It certainly made the Nevada-Colorado part of the trip easier!

Update: it is now open for traffic, only one lane in each direction. It's slow and still prone to closures, but it's open. You can get the latest traffic and closure information from CDOT's good website: https://cotrip.org/home.htm  If you're interested, there are traffic camera feeds on the site that might let you watch the chaos.

The RFQ for repairs went out last night, everyone's busy putting together bids. Not for mitigation, just "let's get this so it survives the winter because we don't have much time". I haven't seen plans yet. The problem is that the construction industry is starved for both material (specifically oil) and staff right now and it's pretty late in the season to be changing direction, so the calculation is going to be if it's worth even bidding for a lot of companies. Which means this won't be cheap.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It used to be " good, fast, or cheap - pick 2". In construction it appears to have morphed to "pick 1" for the past 18 months or so.  

Keith Tanner said:.....

The problem is that the construction industry is starved for both material (specifically oil) ......

Why are they running low on oil ?

In reply to Indy "Nub" Guy :

Because there are not enough trucks and no truckers to drive the trucks to move the oil. They are seriously on rationing. 

On top of that, there is an actual production problem. I was told that one of the cokers at Suncor went down, and they're one of (the?) major supplier. And they can't get parts to fix.

Janel is in a feisty mood today, I got her all wound up about this by asking. Think I'd better go work in the garage for a while until the blue air clears.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

First off, thanks for your continued insight in the situation out there.  Second, sorry for the getting you and Janel worked up over the question.

I have a buddy who hauls fuel here in Indiana, and while he's been very busy, he hasn't mentioned an "oil shortage", so I was curious.  You all are on the other side of the Rockies, and no doubt your distribution network is different (and more challenging) than we have here in the Midwest.

aircooled said:

 

I am not sure The H1 closure hade a huge affect on tourism either.  

It only affects the Canadian tourists with their 90 million feet long RV going 5 mph and constantly holding up traffic. Perfectly fine to live my PCH life without those people ;)

Indy "Nub" Guy said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

First off, thanks for your continued insight in the situation out there.  Second, sorry for the getting you and Janel worked up over the question.

 

I have a buddy who hauls fuel here in Indiana, and while he's been very busy, he hasn't mentioned an "oil shortage", so I was curious.  You all are on the other side of the Rockies, and no doubt your distribution network is different (and more challenging) than we have here in the Midwest.

Fuel and asphalt oil aren't quite the same thing (although related), so it's possible he's not seeing what Janel is seeing in terms of supply. The lack of drivers is a problem in this area for sure, up but a working driver might not see that other than it being easy to get work :)

You didn't get me wound up but Janel freely offered up an insight into the stressors on her business right now :D She has strong opinions about some of the causes, which are outside the scope of this discussion. But in terms of "fast, cheap, good" - this project has to be fast and there isn't even enough time for good (assuming good means preventing future occurrences as opposed to fixing what's broken) before the winter. With all construction resources already committed elsewhere because we're staring down the tail end of construction season, cheap is off the table.

Flash flood watch today and possibly a preemptive closure of the canyon. I'll bet there are some nervous CDOT people watching that fire scar. 

I've got friends trying to get us out to Moab tomorrow yelling " The canyon is open!"  I nicely reminded them of the rain forecast, and the travel consequences of getting stuck on the other side 

Good call on not going to Moab, it rained hard here and I-70 is closed. No mudslide yet but "the burn scar area has already received significant precipitation".

The bids for the repair contract were submitted today. It's not a public opening so I don't know if the numbers will be disclosed, but let's just say it's probably going to be between $5-10 million. I know what one of the bids was but that's not for me to share.

It's a hard project to bid, because they really don't know material quantities until they get there. And of course, all equipment and personnel are already committed, so anyone who wants to do this job is going to have to take performance penalties on others as they pull the crews away. Which gets put into the bid as well.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Unit prices are your friend.

To some extent, but if you think there's a good chance that the estimated quantities are high you don't want to put your profit (or the "we expect to have to pay these penalties because this job will make us late on these jobs" costs) in the unit prices. And you have to make sure you've covered your fixed overhead and mobilization costs amongst others. I got a download from Janel earlier on how this job was going to be set up because of that uncertainty.

These bids are quite sophisticated in how the costs are allocated to different areas depending on what the job looks like.

FYI, this job is supposed to be completed by Nov 1st and will involve 24 hour shift work. Anyone who knows how to run heavy equipment and has nothing to do for the next couple of months, there are some jobs coming up :)

I-70 is open again, no mudslides yesterday. But definitely check cotrip.org before driving across CO.

Back in 90's there was a tire fire under one of the I-95 bridges in Philadelphia.  Structurally damaged the bridge so it had to be rebuilt. The estimated repair time was months, but the contractor was offered bonus $ for each day if it opened ahead of schedule. The road opened in record time - maybe a month and a half.  I wonder if a similar bonus system could be implemented here?

I hear you on the fuel issue.  We're running into supply issues for my client here on the east cost.  Specifically diesel.  The vendors claim they simply cannot find enough drivers, that seems to be the main problem. 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Back in 90's there was a tire fire under one of the I-95 bridges in Philadelphia.  Structurally damaged the bridge so it had to be rebuilt. The estimated repair time was months, but the contractor was offered bonus $ for each day if it opened ahead of schedule. The road opened in record time - maybe a month and a half.  I wonder if a similar bonus system could be implemented here?

Early completion bonuses are pretty common, especially on projects like this. In this case, the project timeline is so compressed that there is no bonus for early completion. Just penalties for not finishing on time (aka liquidated damages, very common), and if there's another mudslide that would get renegotiated.

Yes, I'm familiar with liquidated damages in the pharma construction world as well.  Hard to bid on when there are so many unknowns. 

Keith,  any update on the conditions of this the repair ?