WILSONVILLE, OR – From the City of Wilsonville: The City of Wilsonville announces that the new Kinsman Road extension that connects SW Barber Street to SW Boeckman Road is opening on budget and four months ahead of schedule during the week of Jan. 15.
In addition to providing another routing connection for travelers, construction of the roadway incorporated simultaneously other water- and sewer-installation infrastructure projects that resulted in reduced public disruption and costs.
Originally scheduled for completion in June 2018, the $8.6 million half-mile-long roadway segment, located between Villebois and the industrial westside of Wilsonville, connects two major arterials that greatly improves the city street-grid and provides increased connectivity for both freight and residential traffic.
The new Kinsman Road extension was constructed as a heavy-duty concrete roadway complete with sidewalks and bike lanes that also provides increased public access to the Wilsonville Transit Center, including SMART Central bus and Tri-Met WES commuter rail service.
City engineer Zach Weigel, PE, who oversaw the project, indicates that advance planning and permitting activities, favorable weather and well-coordinated government agencies and contractors contributed to the early completion of the project.
City Community Development Director Nancy Kraushaar, PE, said, “The Kinsman Road extension project is a real win-win for the public that provides new travel routing options, as well as reduced costs for additional major water and sewer projects.”
City engineers worked to combine $5.1 million of other public infrastructure projects with the long-planned road extension in order to more efficiently use taxpayer-funds. The Kinsman Road project included the installation of a $4.0 million segment of a major drinking-water pipeline and a $1.1 million sanitary sewer pipe. S
imultaneous construction of the road, Willamette Water Supply Program (WWSP) water pipeline and sewer project allowed various local governments to all save money and minimize disruption to the public by utilizing one contractor and sharing common costs, such as contractor mobilization, traffic control, permitting, project design, right-of-way acquisition and environmental protections that all three projects would have incurred if performed separately.
The Willamette Water Supply Program, a partnership between the Tualatin Valley Water District (TVWD) and the City of Hillsboro, installed nearly 3,000 feet of 66-inch diameter pipeline that is the first completed section of 30 miles of large-diameter water-supply pipeline from Wilsonville to Hillsboro and Beaverton.
The pipeline is made of half-inch thick steel with welded joints, a cement mortar lining inside the pipe, and a highly durable polyurethane coating on the outside. Future segments of the pipeline are to connect along Boeckman Road to the east and on Kinsman Road to the south of Barber Street.
The City also installed over 3,000 feet of new sewer line in the acquired road right-of-way that is designed to serve the regionally significant Coffee Creek industrial area now under development.
The Coffee Lake wetlands complex adjoins both sides of the Kinsman Road extension. The west side of the new roadway features an extra-wide sidewalk and benches for wildlife and habitat viewing. Fencing along the road and a series of wildlife corridor passages beneath Kinsman Road, including round and box culverts, were constructed to improve safety for both drivers and wildlife.
These details maintain wildlife corridors within an urban landscape and mirror the natural resource protection previously achieved with the Boeckman Road project that also crosses the wetlands.
The project design team was led by OBEC Consulting Engineers, and Emery and Sons Construction Group of Salem managed the construction project. The water-supply pipe was manufactured by Northwest Pipe Co., which specializes in large-diameter steel pipelines.
A total of 90 local jobs are estimated to have been sustained during the course of the 12-month-long project.
Funding for the combined $13.7 million road-sewer-water pipeline project came from City transportation and wastewater system development charges, federal/state funds (U. S. Dept. of Transportation Multimodal Transportation Enhance Program (MTEP) through the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) and Surface Transportation Program Urban (STP-U)), and the ratepayers of the TVWD and City of Hillsboro.