Wichita Area Improvements

[kphoger]

Here we are 27 moths after Woodlawn was first closed north of 37th Street, and the project is still far from done.  But now it turns out that the new road is already failing, and an investigation has been called for.

Woodlawn expansion project continues

The Bel Aire City Council unanimously approved an amendment to the city's contract with Garver for oversight of utility relocations on Woodlawn between 37th and 45th North on June 15.  These utility relocations are a precursor for the Woodlawn reconstruction project.

Garver has worked on the project from the beginning but the original schedule only included 60 working days.  Contractors originally renegotiated the work days up to 75 after realizing the project wouldn't be completed in 60 days.  City engineer Anne Stephens said that adjustment was made because it was requested by multiple contractors.  She said an increase in work days likely wouldn't have been approved if only one contractor requested it.

An additional 15 days have been requested after the city recently added some manhole rehabilitations to the job, raising the number of allowable work days to 90.  Stephens said Garver's construction observation has saved the city money in multiple instances.  For example, Garver recommended that the rehabilitations be included in the manhole relining project.  This would have cost the city more to come back and do later.  Stephens said doing the rehabilitations later would have also created an opportunity for groundwater to leak into the sanitary sewer system, which would cost the city even more.

The contract amendment is for $29,073.  The city did not clarify whether that cost covers the most recent addition of 15 days or the total addition of 30 days.  It was also not stated what the original 60-day contract amount with Garver was.  The utility relocations will be completed in early July.

'Failed Road'
Woodlawn expected to be operational by end of month

The Bel Aire City Council on Sept. 19 unanimously approved a supplemental agreement with Garver for additional engineering services on the Woodlawn reconstruction project because the work has gone beyond its original completion date.

The agreement was for up to $125,464.95.  Pat Herman of Garver said another supplemental agreement will be needed if the project isn't completed by Oct. 12.

"In our mind, this is just a failed road," said Mayor Jim Benage.  "I don't know why that is.  I'm not going to sit here and tell you that—but it is a failure.  We're being asked to pay more money for a defective product.  I understand that's not Garver.  Overall, something happened.  We don't know what that is, but we're going to find out."

The city recently discovered that the east side of newly built portions of Woodlawn is not holding up.  There has not been enough traffic on the west side of the road to determine if the same problem exists there.  The city council asked for both sides to be inspected.

"We're not sure if it's the sub-grade or the base," said City Manager Ty Lasher.  "So they're going to drill some holes and go down 20 feet and figure out what's going on in the base.  Is there ground water?  Is there something else wrong?  They lowered that road three feet.  Maybe the asphalt is just failing.  We don't know.  The trouble is that Garver did all the inspections, and everything they were doing met the requirements.  But yet, we've got a road that's failing."

During a special meeting Sept. 12 the city council considered a stop order for the Woodlawn project.  This would have immediately halted the entire project, but the council voted unanimously against that measure.

"After looking at the pros and cons and talking with KDOT and the contractor, the decision was made to just finish the project," said Lasher.  "Don't stop it because that could cause a number of issues.  Let's cut out whatever we can and still be able to meet the federal guidlines for our grant.  Put the last two inches on and leave.  Hopefully, KDOT and the feds will be fine with it.  That way the road is open and people can drive on it.  And that gives us time to figure out what happened."

By stopping early or failing to meet the federal guidelines, the city could potentially lose its federal funding for the project.  One of those guidelines includes oversight from an engineer with specific certifications.  In 2021, the city's portion of the project was estimated at $4.3 million with KDOT contributing another $5.5 million.

Bel Aire staff recruited Burns & McDonnell to perform a study of the construction and engineering processes for the Woodlawn project in an attempt to determine why the road is failing and who is responsible.  Lasher said there could be an opportunity for the city to recoup costs if liability is identified.  The city has been working with Burns & McDonnell on audits of the Chisholm Creek Utility Authority.  The contract to look at the Woodlawn project has not yet come before council.  Lasher said that will happen at a later date.

Council member Justin Smith expressed displeasure with a KDOT decision that was made months ago to grant an additional 57 working days for the project.  Lasher said the contractor actually requested more than 100 additional days before being granted 57.  Smith said he has seen no justification for the additional working days and said he has noticed inactivity and a lack of progress.  City attorney Maria Schrock said there is a process to appeal the addition of working days, but the time period for that appeal has already passed.  Smith expressed skepticism about whether using federal assistance has actually saved Bel Aire taxpayers money on this project.

The city's consideration of the stop order prompted the contractor to present an accelerated schedule for the project.  There is hope that the remaining asphalt, striping and roadside improvements can be completed by Oct. 12.  Lasher said he believes the contractor is motivated to meet that timeline and move on to other projects.  City engineer Anne Stephens said October is also typically the last month of the year that asphalt can be laid.

"This is a horrible fiasco," said council member John Welch.  "It's kind of like when you go to the hospital and you have no control over what they're doing to you.  And then you end up with a $2 million bill.  That's where we're at.  And they may not even have helped you.  You may die while you're there.  I think some people would think our road is dead."

[J N Winkler]

Here we are 27 months after Woodlawn was first closed north of 37th Street, and the project is still far from done.  But now it turns out that the new road is already failing, and an investigation has been called for.

Yesterday the City of Bel Aire posted an update on this debacle to Facebook.

I have yet to see a clear explanation of why the geotechnical investigations now being conducted weren't performed before starting work on the project.  I tend to doubt we will.  Intuition tells me there is a cost/risk tradeoff whose parameters require a degree of technical knowledge to parse, as well as the element of personal embarrassment to those who are licensed, and paid, to have the answers.

[edwaleni]

Here we are 27 months after Woodlawn was first closed north of 37th Street, and the project is still far from done.  But now it turns out that the new road is already failing, and an investigation has been called for.

Yesterday the City of Bel Aire posted an update on this debacle to Facebook.

I have yet to see a clear explanation of why the geotechnical investigations now being conducted weren't performed before starting work on the project.  I tend to doubt we will.  Intuition tells me there is a cost/risk tradeoff whose parameters require a degree of technical knowledge to parse, as well as the element of personal embarrassment to those who are licensed, and paid, to have the answers.

Their approach seems to take the same way as their native son, Tyler Hoover. (Hoovie's Garage) Buy the the car and find out what is wrong after.

[kphoger]

I have yet to see a clear explanation of why the geotechnical investigations now being conducted weren't performed before starting work on the project.

So, when the City Manager stated, "Garver did all the inspections, and everything they were doing met the requirements", did those requirements not include it?

[J N Winkler]

I have yet to see a clear explanation of why the geotechnical investigations now being conducted weren't performed before starting work on the project.

So, when the City Manager stated, "Garver did all the inspections, and everything they were doing met the requirements", did those requirements not include it?

It sounds to me like Garver was engaged to perform construction inspection, while the geotechnical factfinding that Burns & McDonnell are now performing should have happened during the design phase.  Subgrade bearing capacity is probably the most important parameter in pavement design, and the document distribution for a project often includes a geotechnical report that summarizes the results of test borings and makes recommendations accordingly, such as digging out peat or high-organic-content muck and replacing it with imported material that is more dimensionally stable.  MKEC, another consultant, is involved in some capacity, but I don't know if that means they produced the plans set.

It would help to have the plans and specs for this project to establish context.  However, although KDOT is apparently involved in some capacity (probably because this is an N or U jurisdiction project), I don't think it was processed through the KDOT lettings.  I don't know how Bel Aire does things, but with Wichita there is no availability in arrears:  plans and specs are hosted online by a blueprint company and disappear almost the instant bids are opened.

Their approach seems to take the same way as their native son, Tyler Hoover. (Hoovie's Garage) Buy the the car and find out what is wrong after.

I hadn't actually known he was local to us!  That was my new thing learned for the day yesterday.

[J N Winkler]

I did a little more digging, and it turns out I erred in supposing this project was not processed through the KDOT lettings.  In fact, KDOT let the project in September 2021 as 87 N-0678-01.

Specs

Plans

MKEC did indeed produce the plans set.  The typical cross-section sheets call for seven inches of hot-mix asphalt on top of eight inches of aggregate base.

There is additional information on the project on KDOT's Exploratory and Project Reports site (have to create a login to access), including the environmental packet (basically the permit package), the original plans set, and six revisions.  I took a quick look at the latter and none of them addresses changes to the pavement structure--they're mostly minor revisions to the striping and traffic control.  Perhaps more telling is what is not there:  no geotechnical report.

[edwaleni]

[

Their approach seems to take the same way as their native son, Tyler Hoover. (Hoovie's Garage) Buy the the car and find out what is wrong after.

I hadn't actually known he was local to us!  That was my new thing learned for the day yesterday.

Actually there is an entire mafia of You Tube "creators" from Wichita.

The most popular is Tyler Hoover and "Hoovie's Garage".  He just bought an old farm outside of town and is building a bigger garage to store his collection. Due to his recent divorce he had to dump his house on the east side of town and is living in his dads airport hangar out at Stearman Airport. The local Chevy dealer just paid him $1 million plus for a ton of his cars. The biggest ones he auctioned off on Barratt-Jackson. (and met his current new squeeze) He just started a new channel called "Good Morning You Tube" with same squeeze who moved to Kansas to be with him.

"WatchJRGo" is John Ross Lumbert. He lives in Andover and used to run his channel out of his garage. Was fired from his regular job for messing with You Tube too much, he went full time. He subsequently used his You Tube wealth during covid to buy a commercial building in Derby. Plunked a ton of cash into fixing it up and then flipped it.  He was searching for a new base away from the city for awhile and couldn't get a bank to finance him rationally. So he has been grifting off his friends auto shops and fixing up old lake cabins with his brother in law until he can get his latest acquisition into shape for more car stuff (I assume). Has done more advertising promoting O'Reilly Auto Parts in his videos, they should be giving him a frequent customer award.

"Elliott Alvis" who calls himself the "motor'y notary" has a less frequent channel that covers the travails of his Volvo V70R that he beat Tyler Hoover too. He occasionally shows up in Tylers other cars or flys out to car shows to look at someone elses cars or rent rare ones. He works at an electronics manufacturer there in Wichita.

"100 Percent Jake" runs a somewhat more obtuse channel about fixing old Buicks, and other random cars. Content is infrequent and I heard Tyler Hoover has hired him to help with his channels.

"Euroasian Bob" is a used car dealer in the old part of Wichita. Has a junkyard in the back and seems to turn up at the same auctions as Tyler Hoover. The Car Wizard (noted below) seems to buy a lot of old cars from him.

The rest are sort of aligned with or associate with the others.

The "Car Wizard" up at Omega Auto Works in Newton, KS has been enriched by Tyler's wealth by fixing all of the clunkers (mostly broken exotics) that he brings up to him. Ever since Tyler started featuring the "wizard" his channel has taken off.

The "Car Ninja" runs a German car repair shop (German Motor Werks) in Wichita over by Beech Field and Tyler brings all of his broken BMW's to him to fix, of which many of them are hopeless. He seems to do pretty well living off Hoovie's weakness for run down BMW's. WatchJRGo seems to pawn off of him alot to mount tires, get ancient Bosch injectors working etc. since his home garage can't do it.

They all kind of self-promote each other, some more than others. Some do their channels full time, some part-time, or others "when they can" time.

Honestly they were kind of interesting but it reaches a point where every car is a "dream car". Every project is a "dream project". Where just buying a used plain Ford F-250 or going to CarMax for a quote is turned into some kind of spiritual experience. Where the term "I have always wanted one of these" really means "I have really wanted to see how much money I can make off of these".

After You Tube cut their rates, some of these guys went into a semi-panic, started renting cars on Turo etc to keep their dream alive.  They basically use YT dollars to consume cars as a hobby and then dump them when the fascination wears off.

Their watch ratings have been declining pretty regularly since covid ended and their monthly ad income (from YT) declining.

The problem with most YT channels is that it stops being about a certain subject and it transitions into being about the person doing the talking. Seeing themselves too much on the editing screen tends to do that.