The Chesapeake City Council held a regular meeting on May 14, 2024, at 6:30 PM in City Hall Council Chamber, preceded by a 5:15 PM work session on the Elbow Road Bridge Replacement Project and FY2025 budget review. The council adopted the FY2024-2025 operating budget with three amendments, approved several ordinances and resolutions, and heard new business items including a request for a charter referendum on single-member voting districts.
We could uh get everyone at the seats, please. We need to get started. Mr. Manager, would you please present your items under our work session? May 14, 2024. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First up is uh Earl Sorry, Director of Public Works with updates on uh projects on Elbow Road. Thank you, Mr. Manager. Uh I'll be giving you updates on two. Oh thank you, Mr. Manager. I'll be giving you updates on uh two projects along Elbow Road, the roadway project and the bridge replacement project. Um so I will start with the uh bridge replacement uh project. So you know that replaces the existing bridge uh adjacent to the Stumpy Lake spillway. And so you know if you drive over today, you'll miss it because it's only about 30 feet long. Um but it is a structurally deficient bridge that is in need of replacement. Uh the pictures that you see uh to the right of the slide uh show the bridge, and then it also shows it uh overtopping during Hurricane Matthew. And at that point, we had to do some emergency repairs, had to go in with sheet piles and and do some improvements to get us uh to hold us over and keep the bridge safe to we can go forward with the full replacement. Um because the new bridge is taller, a portion of that will be in the city of Virginia Beach, and we'll talk about Virginia Beach's contribution to the project. Uh so uh the right-of-way acquisition is complete. We will start utility relocations uh later this month, and we could start construction as early as this fall. Uh, the thing uh of interest to council is this construction will require a long-term road closure and detour. We're estimating that that would take nine to twelve months. Uh we're mindful of the impact on that to our citizens and commuters. So we are having discussions with VDOT about the possibility of including an early completion incentive in the contract. And uh the detour is marked, but it would uh include Centerville Turnpike to Lynnhaven Parkway to Indian River Road, and the project would continue until the spring of 2026. I share this slide, and I know it's a little busy, but uh the the bot the kind of the middle part of that slide that you see uh with the blue shading, that's roughly where the existing bridge is today. So uh the new bridge will be about four times as long. It'll be 120 feet uh long, it would be higher, and because of that added uh height and length, that puts a portion of the project into the city of Virginia Beach. So again, I know the slide's a little bit busy, but I'll just focus on the shaded portions uh of that graphic. Uh what's shaded in the purple is our bridge project. Uh what is shaded in the tan is the elevation on the Virginia Beach side to bring the roadway up to the elevation of the bridge. Uh we will manage uh both aspects of that construction under an uh contract with Virginia Beach. So that would be procured as one project, executed as one project. And then what you see highlighted in green is Virginia Beach's ongoing improvements of the various phases of elbow road. So our capital budget uh for this is roughly seven and a half million. Uh that's funded uh by VDOT. Uh Virginia Beach would be contributing another three million dollars for their portion of the project, bringing the uh project total to ten and a half million, and again, we would have an upcoming uh item for council's consideration uh to to uh enter into a contract with Virginia Beach. I'd also like to just you know what while we're here talking about Elbow Road, give you an update on the roadway uh widening portion. So again, just to recap the the scope of the project, it would include uh two twelve-foot wide lanes and wider shoulders, uh leaving up a much safer roadway with a much better drainage system. Uh the project is 90 uh percent designed, and we're continuing to go through the environmental permitting process with the Army Corps of Engineers. When we get to this portion of the work, this would not require a full closure, but it would require intermittent uh daytime flagging operations. So I'll show you a couple of the uh typical sections. So uh this slide shows what the ultimate section would look like. So uh it would ultimately be uh four lanes, two lanes in each direction with uh uh pedestrian and bicycle accommodations. Um as we work through the core process, they're always looking at you know the environmental impacts, and in this case, particularly the impacts to wetlands. And they're often looking for us to shrink the footprint, you know, to to minimize those impacts. So based on comments that we received from the core, the next iteration of the plans will eliminate the five-foot bike lanes that are adjacent to the roadway, but we'll widen uh the sidewalk uh on the east side from a five-foot sidewalk to a ten-foot path.