Groton Municipal Television, CT Groton Long Point Road Bridge Task Force, 21 Jan 2021

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From YouTube: Groton Long Point Road Bridge Task Force 1/21/21

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Groton, Connecticut municipal meeting: Groton Long Point Road Bridge Task Force January 21, 2021.

A

Get the recording going all right well, uh welcome everybody to the third uh grant montgomery road bridge task force meeting um just quickly go through the roll call here um for the task force members um I just go by who I see on the screen here we have frank bowland, ray rafferty, uh andre bumgardner, clarence, casper, dave, mcbride and porsche borderland uh for staff. We have myself greg hanover director of public works, uh john burke, town manager, and then we have from aecom our engineers consultant engineers with john haplitz and john ives.

A

Well, thank you. Everybody for attending tonight.

A

At the last meeting, we kind of reviewed the elevations for flooding uh sea level rise. We talked a little about uh roadway, wets, spike lanes. Andre, had some good comments on that.

A

We're going to go over that tonight in some detail and also john eyes, has prepared a presentation to really kind of get into some of the design standards that are going to be required for the profile and review the profile in respects to sea level rise um and also the right-of-way or property impacts, particularly for the houses um on the north side of the road in noec and we'll, hopefully uh be able to. You know, get some good input from everybody.

A

So we can kind of give our engineer some guidance to proceed with some design work here so, um and I also put in on the agenda just to talk briefly about after we get through all the technical stuff, just um a little bit on the website development where we are with that and how we want to proceed with that. So that uh turn it over to uh john ives. You can go through and kind of give us the your presentation, john.

B

C

I'm sharing my screen.

C

C

All right is everyone seeing the uh title page of the presentation- yep, yes, okay, very good, all right! You all! You know both of us at this point, as greg mentioned, we'll quickly go over the roadway, typical section and then we'll really delve into the profile tonight and what the design criteria are. So everyone has a good background on that and what the right of, where impacts, are of of meeting that design criteria or or some kind of compromise thereof, and then hopefully, that'll generate some some open.

C

Some discussion on uh give us some direction going forward.

C

So that's that's the major goal for tonight. uh The typical section we discussed briefly last time.

C

um The minimum width for the roadway here will be based on you, know: condot design criteria and construction staging, and we come up with the same width needed for both um we're proposing two 11 foot lanes: two five foot shoulders, which will double as bike lanes and one five foot, six inch sidewalk and um the limits of where that sidewalk starts and ends um in relation to the project.

C

Limits are to be determined right now, we're assuming that the sidewalk is in the you know, basically starts at the bridge and continues east to uh to escort point beach.

C

So we are incorporating the bike lanes um within the shoulders and are there any questions or comments about about that.

C

D

Current current width of the road as I measured it, was 32 feet.

C

So yes, it would be uh right now your roadway does not have a sidewalk on it. It does have some extra wide barriers. um They have that little uh safety curve. Let's call it, you know like a narrow curve. Maybe it's about two feet wide or less. um So we we have a slight widening, that's required for incorporation of the sidewalk.

C

It's also required for stage construction in order to build this bridge with alternating one-way traffic. In the first stage.

C

On the existing bridge, while we construct half of the new bridge and then flip that traffic to the newly constructed half of a bridge, while we construct the second half of the proposed bridge, a slight widening would be required, and it just so happens that that widening is equal to the width that we need to meet um basic condot design standards for lane width and bike lane width.

C

D

C

Extra build for construction staging and and at the same time, we're you know we're we're minimizing the width, which is what we want to do here, because with this cost, so hey john.

E

Yes, uh great and and a great presentation so far, and thank you um um for uh sharing this information with us um sort of curious to see it. Can there be any attempt to even um uh lean the existing lane. So currently it's looking like it'll be 11 feet wide going in each direction, which I think is great. But obviously um you know there are some roads that are 10 feet, uh 10 feet wide and they uh the wider, the road width.

E

um You know it um the more likely it were, it would induce higher speeds, um and so you know my question is: could we make an attempt, maybe to look at a 10 foot lane direction in each way and have a one foot um painted buffer between the bike lane and the the um vehicular lane.

C

That's a good question and I I understand you're concerned you do have a a straight shot of road and I guess that could lead to higher speeds.

C

Do you have uh any experience in the town with um you know at this location with excessive speed in the past? Well, I know this is not necessarily you andre, but you know also greg or or I'm.

E

Sure dave dude would be able to answer the question best and in clarence I know they. They use that road uh way more frequently than all of us combined. um So I certainly want to respect their point of view most of all, um but uh you know considering that again that road is coming from a state road and obviously, once you hit that bridge you you do want to encourage slower speeds once you you know, get into um to long point, um so that that would be my only other comment on that.

F

Yeah this is uh dave mcbride. That's a that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up. uh I would say that you know in the busy season: it's not that people slow down because it's busier, but in the off season it does people tend not to slow down once they cross the bridge. You know the uh the bridge from the rail bridge, so if that was feasible, that would be something we should probably consider.

B

Yeah, this is clearance. I I do go by there almost every day living in memphis cove and I think cars do go slower in the summer. There's kids on the bridge, it's it's! It's narrow and people do slow down.

B

uh I think coming into uh groton long point, uh cars are tending to go slower uh because they're coming up to a stop sign anyway, and the speed limit is 25.

B

uh It drops to 25 just just uh before, as you come around the curve just over the railroad tracks uh but leaving, I think sometimes people do speed up from the stop sign in the off season and go over the bridge.

B

Faster than 25 miles an hour but not much more.

F

And this is david again, do we know what the width is currently as a comparison.

D

I just told you I meas I measured at 32., poland, poland, measured it at 32.

F

So there's no change in the actual width of the lane from the current. uh It's it's 11 feet currently. Is that safe too, so.

A

Probably I'm going to guess at 12 foot now because that's pretty standard from you know state highway design back in the 50s and 70s when it was you know, put in.

C

Forget the scrolling: this is what I had for the for the existing condition. uh Yeah.

A

It's a 12 foot lanes and 2.

C

Foot 11 inch shoulders.

B

C

And you do have striped shoulders out there now so yeah, that's about.

D

F

A

Yeah, I can also check with our police department. I know we did a traffic study or account study a couple years ago at this location, um for this project and I'll I'll see if we actually captured you know, average speeds and stuff as well. That is helpful to john.

C

And I can offer this to if you know what we're showing is the minimum width that we think we need for stage construction, but if you had 11 foot lanes and 5 foot bike lanes, nothing would stop you.

C

Even if that's what this you know, the state said. Okay, why can't you have 11 foot lanes? Nothing would stop you from coming back later and striping that buffer zone, if you wanted to.

C

If you striped for 11 foot lanes and 5 foot bike lane shoulders to start and- and that was what the the program made you do, you could always come back and and change that with striping and striping is easy right.

B

Yeah yeah in the summer, you could even put some cones down to effectively narrow the lane and keep the separation.

C

We'll consider that going forward.

C

All right so for the the profile we started talking about this at the last meeting and to start I just want to kind of quickly rehash the the criteria and we did get some new uh information and guidance from condon. So let me move ahead with that, so because we want to get this in the federal local bridge program to get that 80.

C

Funding that does necessitate the use of conduct, design criteria and the hydrologic and hydraulic criteria will affect the profile um because that's going to set our our minimum elevation with relation to the design flood so based on the drainage manual um and the watershed size that dictates the design event, which is the 100 year return period.

C

uh Event frequently referred to as 100 year flood and the drainage manual says you need one foot of freeboard again, that's the distance from the water surface, elevation to the edge of road to the low point on the road or one foot of under clearance at the bridge. That's the distance from the water surface to the bottom of the superstructure. The bottom of the beams that carry the road over the channel is that an ore and it's in the end so at the bridge you're going to have additional freeboard but along the roadway.

C

You have to have say away from the bridge.

C

You you have to have that one foot of freeboard. Obviously our structure is going to have some depth to it. So at the bridge you're going to have some based on the drainage manual requirements, you're going to have some extra free board, you need one foot, minimum free board and one foot minimum under clearance, so freeboard is meant for the roadway.

C

You know. Freeboard is the distance from the edge of road or gutter line to the water and.

C

D

Your clearances at the.

C

D

So in this I'm sorry in this case the um the free board really has no meaning, because in.

C

Order to get a flat profile, frank: if you had a flat profile, then the free board would have no meeting right, but typically your bridge is kind of in a a hump in the vertical curve. Oh.

D

I said I hear you.

C

Well, your road would be lower away from the bridge right, gotcha.

F

C

As we said before, the design criteria can be waived or relaxed based on economics, environmental impacts, constructability and right-of-way impacts which come into play here.

D

Maybe for clarification as well the um what we're talking about here is not just the bridge. It's it. It's also, it's the roadway coming to and going away from the bridge right.

C

Right so, within our project, we're going to have to address a certain amount of roadway um on either side of the bridge just to make up.

C

You know uh a reasonable profile, so you can't pick up the bridge and not pick up the causeway adjacent to it.

B

I I have what question uh this is clarence. um What is the rochester? uh The names of the soldiers have not yet.

B

4.5 square miles of um yeah the watershed size 4.2 square miles. What's that based on because it looks like to me in this case the flooding is coming from the ocean side or the south side, and not from the freshwater side.

C

That's a good question. You know, even though that this is a title situation.

C

um What condot uses as criteria for the size of the structure is the watershed size, so you have a 4.2 square mile watershed, north or inland of the bridge and by their manual. That makes this an intermediate structure, and all that really does is it. It dictates how much freeboard and how much under clearance you need.

C

If you had a larger watershed, they would be looking for more under clearance.

C

C

So the fact that it's title doesn't doesn't change that in this case.

C

Does that answer your question.

B

Yes, it answers my question, but it it still doesn't make sense.

C

I I'm I'm laughing with you not at you. Hydraulics are kind of a dark art and um it's not my specialty, I'm a bridge engineer, but um that's their requirement. So.

D

If I can just break in for a second the um the problem is, this is a subject that warheads a little bit of discussion as we get down the road, but one of the problems they have in many of the structures is the post-storm effect you're gonna. They can't do much about the ocean. It's there that water is going to get in it's going to fill up the cove, but then after the storm goes by the ocean goes down and you've got a lot of water in the cold.

D

That's got to get out and if you look at failure along the along the shoreline, the majority of the failures that you see have happened from the inside out they've. The structure has fallen into the ocean because they couldn't get the water out. They couldn't support the load from the water in the uh in the cove.

D

That's the concern.

B

Yes, so that would be a later discussion right right.

C

C

So the design water surface, elevation based on the drainage manual comes from comes from fema and and the latest uh fema flood insurance study has a 100 year, still water elevation of 9.7 so for a frame of reference. The low point on the existing causeway is about elevation. Eight.

C

And high tide is around elevation, one give or take so.

C

So, given that um 100-year stillwater elevation of 9.7, the elevations required to meet the condot drainage manual requirements would be you know, one foot of freeboard would give you a minimum edge of road elevation of 10.7.

C

And one foot of under clearance would mean the bottom of your structure would be set at 10.7, and you know, as as frank alluded to earlier you're. You have some structure depth there in this case, if we're clear, spanning over the existing structure, building a longer bridge founded beyond the existing abutments, our depth could be about four feet, and that would give you a minimum profile grade at the bridge, all the way up to 14.7 feet, yeah, that's pretty far up from where we are now and that's.

A

Understood what are we at now, john? Just so, people have a point of reference around.

C

At the bridge, I'm going to say we're we're at about we're close to that 9.7. We may be just a little bit under it.

A

All right so raising the bridge about five feet.

C

A

Voters will love you.

C

You meet the drainage manual requirements which again are even though they list them as requirements. They are subject to.

C

I guess uh consideration for, for economic.

C

Realities so we talked about sea level rise at the last meeting, and I got some clarification from michael hogan, who is the head of conduct's hydraulic unit.

C

Condot does not currently require that that design water surface elevations be adjusted for sea level rise now. That does not mean that we're not going to consider sea level rise and design, but by their standard their reference elevation is the elevation 100 year flood elevation in the current fema study.

C

That's their current standard. So so there is the public act.

C

Fact, 18-82, which, which strongly recommends that you consider sea level rise in in your planning and basically what this boils down to is the town is free to exercise judgment in how you account for sea level rise again. The recommended sea level rise is 0.5 meters, which is 1.64 feet or close to 20 inches, and it's thought that that is the projection for year.

C

C

So I dug further into the fema flood elevations, and this uh top list here is showing 100 years still. Water is 9.7 as we discussed.

C

So that means that every year there's a one percent chance that you'll have a flood event that reaches elevation 9.7.

C

The 50-year stillwater elevation is 7.6 means every year you have a 2 chance of hitting that elevation.

C

Likewise 10-year elevation is, is 4.9. That means you have a 10 chance of a flood event. That's at that elevation and mean high water is 1.21.

C

So all of these 100 year, 50 year and 10 year, are theoretical design, storm events and and corresponding elevations.

C

If we add the recommended sea level rise to those elevations, we get these numbers down below here and.

C

This is, you know, just projecting that the still water elevations will will rise with the sea level rise and.

C

We can, as a suggestion we can design to the requirements of the drainage manual, which are you know, giving you a roadway, that's dry for the 100-year event, and we can see where that leaves us for you know in given the projected sea level rise for year, 2050 so to to incorporate that sea level rise in the in the design water surface elevation would put us at such a high elevation that it would have a severe effect on the rights of way and we'll get into that later on.

C

So I guess I want to make now. Is you do not have to incorporate sea level rise in the design water, surface elevation.

C

It should be a consideration and.

C

You know the designing for the 100 year event is, is still designing for a theoretical flood. It's still conservative, the sea level rise is a conservative projection that we can consider in our planning for the the causeway and bridge and make sure that in you know, in the future, we're still in good shape.

C

Without necessarily going overboard and planning to have a structure that is dry for the 100-year event in year, 2050.

C

And just adding conservatism on onto conservatism,.

D

The proposed roadway elevation that you just got through talking about is 14.7 feet.

C

We're not we're not proposing that yet we're just saying that is what you would need to be at the bridge to meet this strict re to strictly meet the requirements of the drainage manual.

D

Understand but that's that's well in excess of the 1134, so your the road is going to be dry in the 100-year storm without adding another foot and a half to it.

C

If you, if you were to actually design for that 14 feet and change, um I think you'd have some severe right-of-way impacts. So I want to look at those first.

D

Okay, because I know.

C

That a compromise will be required here and I believe that one will be so kind of building up what are the ideal design requirements.

C

You know and what are the resilience um issues that we want to look at and then now? What are the right-of-way issues that that's the next and then we'll have a discussion, hopefully about what the best path forward is so.

C

So here's your project.

C

We have some, you know. Basically, a long flat causeway elevation is is above nine at the bridge. It's you know it drops down to about eight to the west and uh what we've done is taken a look at some.

C

uh What the effects would be on these property owners if we raise the roadway up to meet just just meet the free board requirements of the drainage manual. So for reference this home on the southwest corner here is.

B

C

I think that's one thousand grand long point road and then I think we have 991 groton long point road here and 981 groudlong point road is the closest property to the bridge.

C

C

So I sent out to this group some separate figures so that you could look at the uh look at these in detail outside of the presentation.

C

This is where we've cut cross sections, and uh so we have section a a is at the driveway here at um at 1 000 grout line, point road, section bb at the next driveway and cc at the next house. Likewise dd and ee, at the next driveway and house to the east.

C

Here we have the existing profile of grout and long point road, here's our bridge and our five cross sections that we cut at these houses and driveways.

B

C

And I'm sure these figures may be hard to see on zoom, but I've got some some more to follow up the elevation in front of these houses. As you can see or I'll tell you it's between it's between nine and eight here and then we've got some.

C

The blue line here is a hundred year still water elevation of nine point. Seven, the green line is the hundred year stillwater elevation, plus the one foot of freeboard that the drainage manual would would recommend and then the red line above is the hundred year still water elevation, plus the sea level rise, which brings you all the way up to 11.34.

C

Here are our cross sections.

C

And what you're looking at is a section taken. It's like a slice taken transverse to the road.

C

This dashed line is the road and you're looking east toward escrow beach and dash line is existing and, what's up here at the solid line, work is proposed.

C

This first section is at a driveway at at 1000 groton long point road and it looks like.

C

If we're to set the roadway for the one foot of freeboard here at elevation edge of road at 10.7, we can match in okay we're picking up the road a little bit in front of this house where we can blend in before the property line and the.

C

C

Section bb is at 991 groton, longpoint road.

C

I go to the map here and.

C

Take a look at 991 grand long point road you can see. The aerial is in need of update on google, but here's the current house here they've got a very expensive uh belgium block driveway here and to meet.

C

To meet that minimum one foot of free board at the edge of road and be at elevation, 10.7.

C

This is what the change would be to the driveway here. What we're showing is looks like I have this in my powerpoint presentation here.

C

About close to three feet of fill and the driveway would get quite steep, so normal design standard for a driveway would be about 12 percent grade and in this case to have a you know, a shelf and a swale in front of the structure for drainage.

C

We're showing a 25 grade on the driveway, which is at most like a four to one slope.

C

So pretty pretty substantial slope and likewise in front of the house, which is shown on the next cross section showing a.

C

Here we're showing a six to one slope, because the shelf is not required but again about three feet of fill in front of this house and here's the view of the house from the roadway.

C

And then the next dwelling and the last one before the bridge here is 981 grand long point. Road.

C

That's section d and section e here we're showing a 20 slope for the driveway looks like about.

C

Close to three feet of fill.

C

Again, a six to one slope from the roadway down to the house. That means that.

C

A six to one slope is is considered to be a maintainable slope for for a lawn which is kind of another design standard. um But that means that also the whole front lawn down to the house would be filled again.

C

The whole driveway would be reconstructed just to meet that slope, which is at 20 percent, is, is well beyond the desirable twelve percent.

C

Now there are a lot of uh driveways in the state that are well beyond twelve percent, I'm sure it's just kondot's design standard.

C

C

So these cross sections are basically they're just meant to convey um if we try to meet that one foot of freeboard for the 100-year flood, what the changes are going to be to these uh to these properties and and uh what the right-of-way impacts are going to look like so we'd be grading well onto well onto the lawns here and redoing these whole driveways we're filling the road in front of the houses by about three feet.

C

C

You know that is that substantial and I think worth worth discussion.

C

And this next slide here.

C

Just gives you the approximate fill required to meet that one foot of freeboard, and this is assuming that we get a design exception from condot and don't provide one foot of under clearance at the bridge. If we provide that foot of under clearance we'll have to extend that profile out well beyond the bridge to get up to elevation 14 at the bridge, and so these fill depths would increase.

C

C

At the same time, you know we, so we have our condot design requirements which can be waived based on right away, impact and economics. We have our.

C

Projected increase in sea level and we have our our you know our residents, our homeowners as a consideration, and we need to find a balance and decide what's most important to move ahead with the profile.

C

We need to know what's acceptable for right-of-way impacts.

C

And that's really uh well I'd like to open up for discussion here.

B

So yeah um this is clarence. I I wonder if, instead, you know, I understand the driveways have to be sloped, but is it necessary to slope the lawn or just to provide a um almost like a wall?

B

You know instead.

C

That's a good question: we could provide wall, um it's just cost.

A

C

Provide walls and.

A

C

Know and landscaping to you know that might be a discussion with the homeowner.

B

And, and also uh is it much more costly to relocate the road a little bit more south, it looks like that looks like it could be a possibility also.

C

What would be the goal of relocating the road to the.

B

South it gives those two houses a little bit more room from the.

C

C

I guess looking at it um at this plan view here, this aerial photo. um What I see is a house on the southwest corner, that's very close to the road.

C

And so that first property, which is almost across the street from that house, it'd be hard to give them any relief, and I would just advise that pushing the whole causeway to the south would be.

C

I would expect that to be expensive.

D

D

John, I have a question: yes, the um the elevation profile from the bridge. I understand the bridge we're standing at 14-7 or something like that.

D

um Did you carry 7 all the way along down to uh to where, when you're figuring the um the properties, the the elevations are somewhat lower at those properties than the bridge elevation right.

C

What we've done here is to just show the existing profile and the flood elevations and where the sections are cut, so we don't have a proposed profile on here.

C

um You can see from this figure that the current bridge is is between nine and ten at the top of road, so let's say nine and a half, and what we've done on the cross sections is to just assume that we're minimizing the profile change to provide that one foot of free board only and not the one foot of under clearance.

C

This might be some kind of compromise and okay, because this is definitely an attainable compromise.

C

What would the right-of-way impacts be, or do we have to go even further and not provide?

C

You know the one foot of freeboard this is this is for open discussion, but we haven't developed a profile that um that meets the strict requirements of conduct, because we know that they can be relaxed, and we know that looking at these sections, which already have large right-of-way impacts when we're just trying to get to 10.7 that if we try to get all the way up to 14 to over 14 at the bridge, the right-of-way impacts are going to be so much greater. That we'll be talking about takes instead of slope, easements and driveway reconstruction.

D

Right well, if you look at the uh the circuit conditions, when uh we have a hundred year storm a number of those properties, a a number of those properties are underwater anyway b.

D

The bridge, the existing bridge surface is just about dry in the 100-year storm and the roadway as you proceed uh south and west towards the stop sign, goes down to a low so that you've got uh some amount of water on the road. um Your storm.

C

In the current.

D

C

Again that that roadway profile is about eight and the hundred year, storm is 9.7. So.

D

C

Roadways is uh impassable.

D

Right exactly, but the bridge is just about passable. The bridge surface is uh you're about at uh at 100 year level, 97, or something like that.

D

um So it's um this is an interesting question. How you how you go at it. I mean the by my eye, the red roof guy, the first one we run into on the north side of the road as I'm coming to ground long point. Bumper cove um is is the worst. It's it's the lowest lying, and so I expect to have the slope being greatest in that.

A

D

uh Yeah, I also think that if you raise the roadway up uh significantly, that's the house uh that I'm saying that you're you're cutting their view off.

C

If you look at this house- and what was here previously was a a single story house- and you can see that you know with a new construction- the house has been raised up again, as greg mentioned to me offline, probably for flood insurance reasons could also be for the view.

C

um But I you know any house- that's reconstructed here, which I expect this is happening in this area. People are probably buying some of these older properties and leveling them, and building newer, bigger houses. um They'll be built more like this with uh you know, say a garage on the first floor or a first floor that you know that can survive the flood without ruining the house.

D

And then the main dwelling is up here: yeah, the breakaway. The lower level, I think is, is getting into the requirements for breakaway walls.

C

D

But I don't: let's go back to what it is. We can do how much latitude we have as a committee. um Are you if you're telling me that conduct it requires us to have a certain elevation in order to qualify for money? What is that is it? 14 is 14-7.

C

So I can speak to what we've been able to do on other projects, not necessarily coastal, but.

C

Where we've been able to show substantial cost or right-of-way impact, we have been able to to get rivers for these criteria of uh under clearance and freeboard.

C

I would say that the you know, typically at a bridge replacement at the very worst we're going to match the low cord of the existing bridge. We don't want to be any lower than the existing bridge, so the existing bridge has a low cord elevation of about so either 5.6 or 5.7. So it's substantially lower.

C

We're talking about picking up, um let's say if we had a a.

C

That one foot of freeboard as a target- and we said we're going to get a waiver for under clearance. We were at 10 70 and we had a um a clear span structure. That's about 90 feet long and then that structure is going to be four feet deep and that puts us at 6.7.

C

You know we can probably be a little bit higher at the bridge because we have some room.

C

Sorry about that. We have some room between the last house and the bridge to build up the.

C

C

But we have to find that you know that middle ground between resilience and um and cost and right-of-way impacts. So this was just um these cross sections are, for you know, kind of discussion um and consideration.

C

um You might look at these right away, impacts and say: okay, even that is, is more than we're willing to do and.

C

D

Well, if I had to pick a pick, a number for a road elevation for a road surface elevation, it would be on the order of 11.34 feet, which is what I think you told me, was the 100-year storm plus one and a half feet of sea level. Rise.

D

Yes, um did you do you show me that in one of those red white and blue.

C

Yeah we did on the profile, we we had the three lines. So that's it. That's it so yeah. If you look at this grid, this is also a one foot grid. So you can see you know on here and you can also just do the math, but you know.

D

So it's the red guy right is that 11.34 right and which is substantially below that's three feet below 14 7.

C

D

C

So you you'd be keeping the year the roadway dry and you'd. Have um you know even considering the sea level rise? You don't have the extra one foot of freeboard in year 2050, but that's okay. um You can still see the road when you're driving off you know off the peninsula during the 100 year, 100 year flood right, and that was what you know. That would seem to be a good target.

C

It's it's just uh finding the best solution for these properties um with that, if we're picking up so what you're suggesting is to pick up the road a little bit more than what we're showing on the cross sections that are here.

C

So um you know I think, you're beyond looking at slopes, we talked about walls a little bit.

C

You still have the driveway to consider and.

C

It is going to be a pretty severe impact to those those property owners.

D

Go back to the property owner profiles, I I guess I'm not clear on what you used as the elevation, for that was. The worst case was that 1134.

C

So here we showed 10.7, which is just the the current 100-year still water elevation right. Okay, one foot of freeboard.

D

C

C

One thing that I'll go back to in the presentation um we said we want to consider the the sea level rise and, let's see.

C

That was the point of this slide. So yeah you can see you know. Obviously all of these are theoretical events, the 50-year event plus sea level rise is 9.24.

C

So if you were at that say, if you were at that 10.7 you'd be somewhere between the 50 and 100 year, event projecting for sea level rise to.

D

2050., okay, the um that 14-7, then is destiny, doesn't even enter our discussion.

C

And, in my opinion, it's just too much. Oh.

D

C

If you want to do takes there.

C

Yeah and again.

D

C

Know that would be at the bridge and you try to minimize it as you got away from the bridge, but you'll be talking about doing that. To have a perched structure. It wouldn't.

D

Make a lot of sense? No! No, but we, but I I must have misunderstood or not heard. I thought we were. You came up with that number because it satisfied conduct requirements that were that we had to pay attention to in order to qualify for federal monies.

C

Here, um if you satisfy all of their requirements, then there's no discussion with them.

C

If you can't satisfy their requirements, then you have to show good reason why you can't, and certainly looking at the right-of-way impact here that is.

C

D

Do it? Okay, so 14-7 is off the table so now we're looking at something like.

D

Possibly if we said we'd wanted the road dry for access in the extreme event, the 1134 and the drawings you were showing us in profile were pretty uh looked like some pretty substantial hits and if the elevation was only 10-7 or something like that.

C

That was 10-7, so you can look at it this way. You know if you design for the 100-year event now, theoretically, in 2050, that'll, be closer to the elevation of the 50-year event, that's right, which is the two percent. You know a two percent chance of that storm every year, instead of a one percent.

D

F

I have a question: this is david. Is it worth looking into seeing if they would be? You know flexible on the reimbursement rate if we weren't to go so high, because I'm I am concerned about those three property owners and uh what repercussions they're going to have on on this project. I mean: is there some flexibility on what we could do to not so severely impact them, but still fix the bridge, which is what how this all started.

C

Yes, uh I I think that you know even the right-of-way impacts that we're showing on the sections condot would accept something less less than meeting that one foot of free board.

C

But I know that the resilience is a consideration for your committee, so um just it is a major consideration of the town council, so we do have to weigh that also.

F

There's there's other solutions to resiliency, though other than raising the causeway right. Aren't there any questions to consider what are they? Well, you can't you build uh walls or breakaways, or things like that.

C

F

C

Consideration would be your planning you, you have a um some system in place, for you know emergency evacuation and you just have to consider what the you know. You'll know what the causeway elevations are and what you know what event is going to cause that to be impassable and.

C

Certainly, you want to try to make an improvement if you can and it would be another way to go about it.

F

I mean in this day and age if you're a resiliency.

C

F

How many can't you make changes to safeguard that causeway.

C

You can make changes to safeguard the um you know how robust the causeway is. You know part of this would be you know, adding adding heavy riprap to protect the you know. Certainly the seaward side from wave action during a storm event, but elevation kind of is what it is for for right-of-way impacts.

F

And I guess my question would be, and I'm I'm I don't have much knowledge on this, but what repercussions could there be from these three landowners? If any from this program I mean, are we severely impacting them? Are there any legal issues? We need to consider, or is this something we don't need to worry about.

C

Oh, I think you'd want to engage the property owners um so.

F

We will have.

C

To get them during design that will be, uh and you know that's an obligation of the program, their right-of-way.

C

Right-Of-Way would have to be acquired if you're, you know, even if you're not taking their property, if you're impacting their property, you will have to work with them either through the town or through the state. The state will do that for you through the program. If you choose to go that route, but they will engage the property owner and negotiate with them for.

C

C

D

C

Them for the change.

F

So is that something we should begin to do now.

C

I think that's.

C

I think that's up to the town, I would you know I would engage them sooner rather than later. um You might get a feel for.

C

I don't know uh what the what the feedback is going to be during design. I think you don't want to be surprised by it down the road.

A

You um I think at this point um you know john, we can we can reach out to those three property owners. I mean we went down the same path when we reconstructed crystal lake road, um and that was a drt project as well, and we worked it there right away. They did all the takes and everything, but we did, you know, engage the property owners fairly early on um and you know, d.o.t did all the appraisals and and got all the rights away needed, but I think we.

F

A

Probably be looking at that same approach here.

C

Yeah they have their, they con dot rights of way. They are like, basically, a real estate division, that is their expertise and they are used to dealing with it. They know how to appraise the properties and what they're worth and they're they're used to dealing with the homeowners and um there's no reason not to allow them to do that, especially if it's federal local bridge program.

C

They'll handle it as part of the part of the program.

C

And there isn't even a cost associated with having them do that.

A

But there will be a cost to the project, to you know, compensate the property list.

C

That's right, yes,.

C

It's feasible that you could do this with minimal profile changes. However, you you have your resilience.

C

Considerations.

D

I would say in terms of profile the um recognizing that a fair amount of grant long point already is underwater in the 100 year flood event, the um that, if you're thinking about um anything less than mass evacuation, when we have a forecast for a 100-year event.

D

However good that may be, um you have to think about um emergency vehicle access and so that I would say that that road elevation, if you ever, were thinking about just replacing the road that that would be unacceptable- that you're going to have to raise the road in the vicinity of those houses to some extent anyway, because it's it's too low in the extreme event, it gets wet.

D

Now what we're talking about is taking it up to the extreme event plus and that's uh and it had another foot or a foot and a half to it anyway.

D

So it's um resilience and of course, don't forget that red house is going to be underwater uh in the storm and then we get into whether you rebuild it or not. um The so there's a lot of issues that are floating around here. I don't think we should think about leaving the roadway the way it is it's going to come up. The question is how.

D

Much and what what what governs, how much it comes up if you're telling me the conduct, does this or does that or it affects our funding of the project one way or the other, then another whole set of factors come together.

C

Right, I think that the the increase in profile grade is more of a resilience issue than a funding issue, because.

D

Of the severity.

C

Of right-of-way impact.

D

D

So right now, at least on my scratch sheet, I have it we're ranging between 10, something which is what you had on the drawing john and and 11 3 4, which is going to make it much worse in terms of impact, probably not a lot of gain in um in terms of quote resilience, um access for emergency vehicles, because we've got a lot of roadway already under water right left of it.

D

um It sounds to me like the number you're working with is pretty close to that 10 10.

A

7., which correctly from wrong john, but that ten seven meets the conduct criteria.

C

It meets the freeward criteria and that's, I think,.

F

C

That's okay. um To I mean we see under clearance that under clearance requirement not met pretty frequently, um if there's good reason for that structure to be you know, under under pressure flow or or not have the free board that's desired.

D

A

The other thing.

D

Is we could the bridge could be a little bit higher.

F

D

C

C

Right, I mean right now the bridge is at the the low court elevation is, is in the fives, so you're well under water for the 100-year event.

D

Oh yeah, but not the surface of the roadway.

C

D

Not the surface of the roadway.

C

The roadway you know by the numbers here um having a low pro a low elevation of eight, would be 1.7 feet over underwater um at the low point.

C

D

A

Right, but I was I'm thinking along the lines. Frank is: if you keep the bridge a little higher which you need to do for drainage on the road. Anyway, you can't have a perfectly flat road.

C

Right, you know.

A

I think you know you know there are so many variables here.

C

Yeah that what we tried to do on the cross, sections that we gave, you is just show you something at each house. You know knowing that if we're, if we're gonna, have the one foot of freeboard which which you'd like to have just to make sure your roadway is dry during.

B

C

100-Year event, that that would be the minimum impact on that property right and you know so we tried to be at about that elevation at those houses. You know so I'm gonna be a little bit higher than that and then have a little bit of an up and over at the bridge, okay and yep. That would be the goal in the profile development.

C

If we are sticking to that as our as our design.

D

D

Not much more to say you got all the impediments laid out. Another solution.

C

uh The solution is, is some kind of bounce, so it's.

C

You know, understandably, there's a lot of competing um interests here, and you know I'm sure the property owners were they on would have some some different opinions.

C

A

Okay, so maybe one of the next steps is, we should see if the town can reach out to the property owners and create start a discussion.

D

Well, I think you're going to have to take some uh hard options to them in terms of profile, cross-section and elevation.

A

Yeah, I'm thinking that 10-7 yeah.

D

F

That would be a good one to work with.

C

So we could refine our um you know our plan. uh I know the cross sections can be difficult to look at and and show some some cut and fill lines and and some more detail at those properties.

C

So you could have something to take to the property owners to to.

C

A

Okay, anybody else have any comments, questions on this profile or pretty much beat this to death tonight.

C

Well, that's how we get this thing moving forward, so.

A

C

So we can, if we can nail down that profile and- and it sounds like we have some direction on that, then then we can move ahead um and this doesn't change really from the last last meeting and are basically on schedule. um Hopefully talk to those property owners and get some some feedback and get into design.

D

C

Get into design this year as soon as possible.

A

Okay- um and I just did one- I did want to touch on the um the website development. I know you know we still have that web page active out there and you know we've got we're trying to get the emails redirected to myself, which we're working on.

C

um We do have control of the website now and as of today, there is some uh a filter set up, so you should.

A

C

A

Emails right and then how about getting some of the uh this new data uploaded on this kind of bringing up that more current um because you're, looking at the um you know, we have all we're recording all these meetings and that we do have them on the town's youtube our gmtv website and you're. Looking at today, we've had quite a bit of interest.

A

um We've had 48 people which doesn't sound like a lot, but compared to some of the other committees and commissions are out there we're actually probably one of the more popular uh meetings that people are looking at. So it tells me there's a lot of interest in this project. Obviously, so I want to make sure we get as much information out there as we can.

C

A

C

As we coordinate offline with you on what you want to show on the on the website, okay, that'd be.

C

C

Does anyone else have any other questions.

A

Okay, all right, no other questions. Okay, um well next meeting will be february 18th um and I don't know if we'll have had a chance to talk to those partners by then or not, but we'll try, um then. I also want to, I think, start talking about the uh the next uh item, which uh of interest will be the sidewalk. You know where that goes north south side of the road limits of sidewalk, all those good things so be thinking about that.

A

um So there's no other questions. I guess that's it! Thank you. Everybody. Thank you.

C

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank.

D

You very wonderful everyone happy new year stay well. Thank.

D

D