Bryan City Council approves $16M in improved mobility efforts

According to Bryan city staff, these renderings change the focus of the roadway from a single mode of transportation (vehicular) to multi-modal with raised medians and shared use paths and sidewalks, thereby improving safety of this roadway for both vehicular and pedestrian traffic in the area.
PROVIDED PHOTO

“These improvements, specifically, are taking the existing pavement and the lack of sidewalks along that corridor,” Jayson Barfknecht, the city’s public works director, said Wednesday. “We are going to improve the mobility for pedestrians, bicycles and others that want to go through that corridor; and we are going to upgrade it with landscaping. I think it is going to be a nice corridor and a nice entryway into the park and leading its way to Downtown Bryan, as we continue to move and upgrade that area. It will also be a catalyst [for] redevelopment of that area along that corridor.”

The contract was approved for $15,990,929 to Larry Young Paving of Bryan for a three-phase reconstruction project. The council approved Phase 1, which consists of the reconstruction of South College Avenue from West Villa Maria Road to Carson Street. Construction will begin in late April and, dependent on the weather, should be completed by December 2024, Barfknecht said.

“A few years ago we redid South College from Villa Maria South,” he said. “This effort here was to continue that and create a corridor from Texas A&M all the way into Downtown Bryan utilizing South College Avenue being adjacent to the new Midtown Park.”

For the project, about $10.7 million in funds will go toward sidewalks, streets, landscaping, lighting and storm sewer work, and about $5.2 million will go toward water and sewer, he said.

Through the reconstruction of South College Avenue, the city will replace and upgrade underground storm sewer, water and sanitary sewer lines along the project limits as well as off-line improvements to the sanitary sewer generally bounded by South College Avenue/Cavitt Avenue/Lake Street/Edge Street, according to city staff.

Additionally, a 10-to-12-foot wide shared-use path will be constructed along the west side of South College Avenue and a 6-foot-wide sidewalk will be constructed along the east side of South College Avenue; and a landscaped median will run the entire length of the street with a left-turn lane at Rountree Drive and roundabouts at Hollydale Street/Williamson Drive and Carson Street intersections, according to city staff.

“It was the direction of the council to improve the corridor and to improve the mobility of connecting downtown with Texas A&M and being adjacent to the Midtown Park. One of the components of this will be to improve the drainage underneath South College where the new lake will discharge,” Barfknecht said. “As we move through the process of getting the lake permitted … we are going to put the box structure underneath South College to accept the spillway overflow and the flow coming out of the lake whenever we redo that dam, so that will already be in place.”

The following phases will go into picking up where the city leaves off at Carson and taking the reconstruction to Dodge Street and then into Downtown Bryan, he said, and one of the main reasons for the reconstruction is due to drainage in this corridor.

“Whenever we have had rain has always been an issue; South College always turns into a river when we have had big rains,” Barfknecht said. “So that is one of the things we have wanted to address with making South College a little more passible when we have those larger rains, that is the reason there is so much storm sewer involved in this.”

In addition, the council also approved an engineering design contract for $716,000 to design a gravity sewer trunk line to the new Brushy Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant located on Cole Lane in Bryan, which is expected to be completed by summer 2024. City staff said in addition to the design of the sewer trunk line, the scope includes a study to route a sewer force main from a new regional lift station to be constructed on the east side of the bypass. The preliminary cost estimate for the sewer trunk line is between $11-12 million dollars.

“This lift station will take part of the flow currently going to the Burton Creek [Plant] and transfer the wastewater to the new Brushy Creek [Plant]. Over the long term, the Burton Creek [Plant] will be replaced with this regional lift station as the lift station is expanded to carry the additional flow from the decommissioned plant,” city staff stated. “The limits of the route study for the force main are approximately Copperfield Drive near Tiffany Park Subdivision to the north and Veterans Park in College Station to the south.”

During the special meeting, the council also approved a 10-year medical equipment contract with Zoll Medical Corporation for $281,075 for the Bryan Fire Department to lease new cardiac monitors, patient ventilators and mechanical CPR devices.