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Railway Street project nearing completion after asbestos hangup

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It’s safe to say that at this point, the town is aware that they need to get a move on with Railway Street construction.

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“Obviously this project needs to get moving, we need to have it done, I would hate to have it delayed any longer than what it already is,” said councillor Marni Fedeyko during the last meeting September 14.

“It’s a key project, and obviously we need to complete it,” echoed her colleague Tara McFadden.

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It looks like Cochranite drivers shouldn’t have to wait too much longer to make their way east or west down the full length of Railway Street: the project was reported at the meeting as being 85 per cent complete.

“We are looking at having the road paved and painted by the end of this month or early in October,” said the project’s manager Ray Predika.

“I’m sure that residents are anxious to get going on it,” Fedeyko replied.

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There’s a lot going on there on the west end of Railway. They’re replacing water and sewer mains. They’re putting in a storm drain. Then, they’ll turn their attention to bike lanes, parking lots and bus pull-outs.

“The infrastructure was slated for passive replacement in any event because of its age, so it’s difficult to replace water and sewer without disrupting the road,” Predika explained.

“The water main was undersized for some of the anticipated development that might be there […] and so this provides additional fire protection for the entire area. Storm systems in addition, that provides the ability for under-developed or undeveloped lots to come forward and release water in a controlled rate into the new storm system rather than having to store it on-site.”

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Another part of the project was a bit more of a surprise: they need to remove a bunch of asbestos-clad pipe. It was discarded in an era when that material was more favorable and contractors were allowed to leave a lot more things in the ground.

“As unfortunate as those situations are, in a town with this history they do occur,” said councillor Alex Reed.

The project manager Predika was before council to request an additional $700,000 for the project, primarily to cover the cost of removing the contaminated material.

“When we started the construction we found that there was a large quantity of asbestos in that pipe that wasn’t identified in our record drawings,” he explained.

“Our record drawings had included or recorded that the pipe was ductile iron which is basically steel pipe which could be abandoned-in-place, and that’s what the contractor had relied on.”

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“That pipe needs to be removed because of all this asbestos, you can’t just leave it there for some future guy to dig into by accident. That required us to dig an extra two metres deep for about half of the length of the road and then replace that soil again because that was where the storm main was planned to be.”

Mayor Jeff Genung said while the timeline delay and extra cost associated with the asbestos removal are unfortunate, it’s an unlucky situation.

“And councillor Reed, I actually really appreciated your comment around the history and how likely it is to encounter something from so many years ago that’s unforseen and unfortunate,” he said.

“So here we are, having to deal with it.”

Predika said when COVID-19 arrived in Cochrane, there was a moment where the planned project seemed in doubt.

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“The design team started to stop and thought, ‘Is this something that we should be pushing forward?’”

Over the course of the next few weeks however, the answer turned out to be a resounding ‘yes’. They had the chance at some provincial and federal ‘shovel-ready’ stimulus funding, but more importantly, contractor rates were particularly low.

“In fact, the timing was right,” he continued.

“Because of our timing, we did receive some very good responses from the tenders and had some very aggressive pricing from the contractors because there wasn’t really a lot on the table at the time if you were a contractor.”

Councillor Tara McFadden told the project manager said she was impressed with the budgeting work.

“Hats off for your aggressive bargaining at the beginning,” she said.

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“The fact that you were able to get enough of a good deal at the beginning that even with this unfortunate discovery, we’re still to come within what the original budget was, I think says really good things about the team that was looking at this.”

Drivers might be passing through the whole length of Railway Street soon, but the entire transformation of the key thoroughfare will take years to complete. Construction will start on the future transit hub and innovation centre, and on a new parking lot adjacent to the library as well. They’ll be burying overhead utilities when they start on the transit hub (but won’t have to un-do any current work).

“I’m glad to hear that the project is going to be open in October,” said McFadden of the roadway.

“A key part of making sure that our downtown can succeed is having all that infrastructure in place.”

“It’s important to complete the project, I’m happy to hear that it’s close, the sooner the better,” added mayor Jeff Genung.

“One of the things we haven’t talked about is how well this aligns with our vision document and how we want to invest in our core and get the density in our core, so it’s a great move.”

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