Community Development
Route M Trail/South Williams Trail Project
The proposal and engineer’s estimate for the South Williams portion of this project didn’t match upon MoDOT’s review. MECO Engineering Company has corrected this and sent it back to MoDOT. We are currently waiting for MoDOT to give us the authority to advertise. Urbandale is ready to be advertised now, and has been for some time; however, we are still waiting on the advertising green light for South Williams. Since they are both trail projects, we are hoping to advertise them together.
Highway 24 Widening Project
This project has been reviewed and approved by MoDOT and we are anticipating bid advertisement to take place in mid-December, with an opening scheduled for late January. We are currently awaiting the final plan and estimate from Ameren UE for the utility relocations; this is anticipated to take place in January (weather permitting). AT&T should have all relocations completed by December 31st. The City of Moberly will be relocating waterlines at Robertson and Sparks, with an anticipated start date of late December/early January. Willis Brothers will be performing this work.
Downtown Treescape Project
The downtown tree issue is far from resolved, but the council is sure that the existing trees need to be removed for the fact that they are getting too large and are causing damage to the existing infrastructure. Sidewalks, utilities, canopies, signs and even buildings are being impacted. The full removal of trees and stumps along Reed will happen sometime after the first of the year. The council has requested that we notify downtown merchants via letters of our intentions and give them an opportunity to discuss it along with replacement options.
Based on discussions with the council that the number of trees in downtown are too extensive, staff has reviewed the existing planter boxes and has suggested to replant 43 of the 82 existing locations with trees that are slower growth, have smaller root systems and are generally better suited to a downtown environment. These tree recommendations are based on soil conditions, local climate, planter box size and the downtown location. In talking with multiple experts in the field, the species of tree was confirmed to be choice for our purposes. The remaining unused planter boxes would be filled in with brick colored impression concrete for a positive aesthetic quality and a color differential with pattern to identify the slight change in height over the area.
None of the replacement discussions are certain, but staff needed to provide a potential plan for review and modification. The final review and modification by council will take place after the public meeting to be held on Jan. 5th.
Sidewalk Replacement Program
As you know, the sidewalk program is a development in progress. We have made some changes for the better and worse. The budget is becoming more of an issue every year, and due to that, we will not replace anymore sidewalks out of this budget year. We will try to bid out the concrete work around the first of June, with a late June or early July start up.
Also, due to funds being tight, next budget year we will only replace driveway approaches as part of a sidewalk replacement project; if they don't have a sidewalk or are not replacing a damaged one, there will be no driveway approach work, unless the driveway approach is gravel.