Agenda - Public Works Committee - 02/17/2004

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CASE # SUNWOOD DRIVE UTILITY CONDUIT By: Leonard Linton, Civil Engineer II BackgroUnd: The City has received a request to install 6" PVC utility conduit along both sides of Sunwood~Drive through Ramsey Town Center. Hakanson Anderson is preparing the State Aidl.plans for Sunwood Drive and was asked to prepare a cost estimate. Observation: Staff has reviewed the estimate and evaluated the potential value of these condui(s,,,The,, premise for installing the conduits is reduced excavation in the right of way. This conduit would eaery either underground electric or telephone and cable but not both. Electrical lines cannot be in the same conduit as other cables. The initial review of the idea is positive, !he potential for not digging up the right of way is appealing. Further review is not so positive. The cost for these conduits is $94,000, with an additional $17,250 to :add a 3" conduit to the same trench. This would allow for installation of telephone/cabl'e'and electrical ilines in conduit. Manholes are planned at a maximum 400 foot spacing and at street crossings. Excavations will have to be made between manholes to facilitate connection to the individual bUildings. Pre-planning the service locations and installing a manhole at each location is not feasible. Building design and layout governs where the optimal service locations are inevitably pre-placed service locations need to be moved. The city could use the conduits for its own purposes if it had a street light utility or wanted to. interconnect traffic signals. Presently the only traffic signal in Ramsey Town Center is going in at Sunwood and Rhinestone. The city does not have a mechanism in place to recover its costs if private utilities were allowed to use the conduits. Setting up the code necessary to allow the city to charge for the use of the conduit would take time and additional legal counsel expense. Small underground utilities make extensive use of directional drilling with minimal disruption of the fight of way. The pits used for accessing the directionally drilled utilities are about the same size as excavations necessary to access the conduit and directional drilling costs are strictly the utility company's responsibility. The city does not have an immediate need for conduit in the fight of way. Installation of the conduit would provide a free benefit to the small utilities since a cost recovery mechanism is not in place t0 allow the city to charge for this benefit. Staff recommends against proceeding with the installation of conduit on both sides of Sunwood:'drive in. conjunction with the construction of the State Aid Project: