Submitted by Ken Watts
The following is an Idaho Transportation Department request for proposal. Note that this includes Targhee Pass and does not stop at SH 87. “REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR US20 CORRIDOR FROM ASHTON TO TARGHEE PASS PROJECT NO. A023(229) KEY NO. 23229. May 19, 2021. US20 Corridor from Ashton to Targhee Pass. GENERAL INFORMATION PROPOSAL The Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) is seeking qualified and experienced respondents from interested firms to submit a proposal to provide project planning and development services for the US-20 Ashton to Targhee Pass in Fremont County. Final design through PS&E services and Engineer of Record services may be included under a separate phase or contract, at ITD’s sole discretion.” It is critical to note that this “planning” contract can be expanded to include design and engineering services. So the bigger the project scope, the more money the contractor can make. You can make a lot more money from a 4 lane road design than from a 2 lane road design. This allows the “fox in the hen house”. The same company (Horrocks Engineers) that is predicting higher traffic volumes on US 20, can profit from these questionable predictions. Remember this quote from the February 2022, US 20 Ashton to SH 87 traffic study: “Traffic data used to calculate the Level of Service was collected in 2018 and a 3.4% linear growth rate was applied to each location to project to the year of 2021 and to the horizon year of 2050. Because this roadway has high seasonal fluctuations in traffic volume, the peak hour volumes were selected based on the average four highest months (June-September).” This approach results in a very liberal method of determining design traffic volume. This method is much more liberal than in the previous two traffic studies. This results in very suspect determinations of inadequate levels of service for the roadway. Did you connected the dots? Can the same company responsible for the traffic study profit from predictions of higher traffic volumes on US 20 from Ashton to Targhee Pass? The answer is absolutely! The more complex the road design, the more money that can be made by the contractor. There is recent history, in Idaho, of contractors profiting in similar ways. Consider the following from an Idaho Statesman investigative report: — Companies that are responsible for checking the quality of Idaho’s road materials have altered the results of their asphalt tests thousands of times, government documents show. Those changes may have allowed contractors that repair and build Idaho’s highway infrastructure to get bonus payments when they should have been penalized for substandard work — or even forced to tear up the asphalt and replace it…..Most of Idaho’s tests are performed by private contractors, since the state cut back on resources it needed to run them in-house, said Bill Fogg, a senior technician who retired from ITD in 2016. “In my opinion, especially towards the end (of my career) there, and I flat told management there ... ‘You guys have given the keys of the hen house right into the fox’s hands, because you privatized too much of this,’” Fogg told the Statesman in an interview in January. (One of the companies that was investigated by the federal government, was Horrocks Engineers, according to the Idaho Statesman.)
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Making Sense of It All
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