Tenders for Jasper’s pedestrian underpass have come in 18 per cent over budget, however the town is investigating purchasing insurance to calm nervous developers.

After hearing the lowest bid for the job - put forth by Jasper Construction - was more than $700,000 more than expected, council directed administration to investigate if an insurance policy could be purchased to lessen the liability involved with the job, thus theoretically lowering the bids. The current bids ranged from 2.8 to 4 million.

Council now has two weeks to decide to build or delay the overpass.

Director of Environmental services Ken Quackenbush said the developers are nervous about cutting fibre optic cables that run alongside the track when completing the work, and the liability involved.
“What’s making them nervous is the liability of working on CN land, the fibre optics lines and the signal lines,” said Quackenbush.

Quackenbush said the work is quite rare, and that is also affecting the price. He also informed council the work could be partnered with sewage line work needed in the area, which will save the town about $75,000.
Quackenbush said engineers tied liability into their estimates, and included the price of supervising the work. He was surprised the developers were concerned about the risk.

Mayor Richard Ireland wasn’t impressed with the rationale behind the quote. He doesn’t believe the town should be charged a premium because the work must be done ‘carefully.’

“Does that suggest they’re not doing careful work all of the time? I find that startling,” said the Mayor.

He suggested the town investigate the insurance option, noting that the town could likely get insurance cheaper than $700,000, however town manager George Krefting said that could put the town in a difficult situation.

“We’re not the ones doing the work. I’m nervous if the workers did damage, it puts us in a difficult situation,” Krefting said. “When you’re digging with heavy equipment, if you bust a cable, there’s huge costs involved.”

Coun. Rico Damota supported the project as long as grant money continued to fund the project.

“Things are a little cheaper right now... I don’t want this to come out of people’s pockets,” Coun. Damota said.

If council approves the work, they will require more movement with the capital budget. Tenders for work on the provincial building closed on Wednesday, and the town is hoping they will come in under budget.

Coun. Ralph Melnyk asked if the town could bring in other experts to oversee the work to reduce the liability. Quackenbush said that’s rare with municipal projects, especially smaller projects such as the underpass.

Krefting said if the pedestrian underpass goes ahead, it will likely mean another capital project will be delayed, as the capital budget would have to be reworked. Road work on Bonhomme, Pyramid and Cabin Crescent would likely be delayed.

“That would likely be moved to 2011,” Krefting said.

He cautioned council against delaying the project, stating that CN has given a block of time for the work, but he’s not sure if the rail company would agree to that at another date.

Krefting also said there is a lot of guess work in the tender process, and there’s no guarantee that the costs will drop if the project is pushed back.

“There’s a lot of municipal infrastructure work in the municipality. Whether or not the price is better in three or four years is difficult to say.”

Mayor Ireland said he didn’t think this was a sign of things to come with other capital projects, but indicative of the concern developers have with the risks with the project.