Carson City Freeway bids back for final phase

Road and Highway Builders of Sparks is the apparent low bidder to construct the final phase of the Carson project.

The company bid $42.24 million to pave the final four miles of roadway between Fairview Drive and the Spooner/U.S. 50 Junction.

That bid is more than $5 million less than the original engineer’s estimate of $47.65 million.

The next two lowest bids for the project were $42.65 million by fisher Sand and Gravel of North Dakota and Q&D Construction of Sparks at $44.29 million.

The Nevada Department of Transportation board is scheduled to formally award the contract at its May 11 meeting.

Actual construction work is scheduled to start in June and take two construction seasons to complete.

A total of six companies bid on the project, which includes building a four-lane freeway and new at-grade intersection where the bypass rejoins Carson Street at the U.S. 50/Spooner Junction.

It will complete the freeway around downtown Carson City which city officials hope will enable changes that revitalize the downtown corridor along Carson Street.

The decision to build the at-grade intersection with traffic signals helped make it possible to build the final phase this year by saving about $20 million compared to the full freeway interchange in the original plans.

Project Manager Stephen Lani said to do the work, the contractor will have to move about a million cubic yards of dirt to accommodate a base and pavement layer two feet thick.

The freeway will handle a traffic load estimated at more than 43,000 vehicles a day by 2035.

The project is being financed by a combination of funding from the federal government, state highway funds and Carson City.