A Virginia Department of Transportation team has won plaudits from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for delivering the engineering of a Rt. 5 bridge over the Chickahominy River ahead of schedule and under budget. Writes Matt Sabo with the Daily Press:
The total cost for preliminary design and right-of-way acquisitions amounted to 5 percent of the cost of construction. Usually the design and right-of-way costs account for 12 percent or more of the project fees.
The state estimated that had the project been developed over three or more years, as is typical, inflation would have bumped the total construction cost significantly. The savings generated by the bridge team came to $5.3 million, plus cutting off two years of waiting for a new bridge to be built.
VDOT has been improving its on-time/on-budget performance, but this project was unusual. There was a special sense of urgency because, without the deteriorating bridge, motorists would have encountered a 63-mile-long detour.
Said VDOT spokesman Dawn Eischen: “What helped us to ‘fast-track’ this project was the fact that everyone from all levels recognized the critical need for a new bridge and resources were dedicated to move the project to advertisement as quickly as possible.”
Now that we know what VDOT is capable of, we should expect more of it. At the same time, the state should be able to reward superior performance with more than an “attaboy” from the Governor. When VDOT employees save that much money and time, they should get money in their pockets. Of course, state personnel policy makes that impossible. Until that policy is modernized, such spectacular performance will remain the exception rather than the rule, and VDOT will never be all that it can be.