The Cupertino Courier

News

Bidding rules are eased for Mary Avenue project

By Cody Kraatz

The Cupertino City Council on March 6 approved two staff recommendations aimed at making the Mary Avenue Bicycle and Pedestrian Footbridge project run more smoothly. Bidding on the project is scheduled for late April.

The council opened up $5.7 million that the Valley Transportation Authority granted for the construction of the bridge to be used for design costs as well. It also eased the city's existing contract bidding rules because some qualified and contractors might have been barred from bidding on the project.

The new rule excludes only contractors that have been fined more than $50,000 and those with more than four violations under $50,000 in the last four years. The previous threshold for exclusion was $500.

The city needed to increase the threshold because of the scale of the project, said Ralph Qualls, director of public works.

"Large contractors doing $100 million dollar projects that we do not want to arbitrarily exclude tend to have a greater exposure to larger violation penalties," he said.

The violations may be minor, but the fines for highway projects can be much higher because of their size, said Qualls.

Contractors can be fined for violating wage, workplace safety, environmental and other construction regulations.

VTA has agreed already to let the city use all of VTA's total $7 million investment in the project for both design and construction, but the council had to approve the $5.7 million portion, said Qualls.

The city can now reimburse itself for about $1.3 million it spent on design and project administration. The city has spent almost $680,000 on grading, fencing and utility relocation, work that prepared two large earth ramps on either side of Interstate 280 as foundations for the bridge.

Other funding sources for the bridge are about $1.4 million from the state, $145,000 through the state's Transportation Development Act, and $110,000 from the city of Sunnyvale, according to city officials.

The city has written two letters, the first to Sunnyvale's city manager and the second to Sunnyvale's mayor and city council, asking if they would be willing to pay more since the bridge will benefit Sunnyvale residents.