Carson bypass bid goes to Road and Highway Builders

Nevada Department of Transportation last week tentatively awarded a contract for the Highway 395 Bypass project in Carson City to Road and Highway Builders, the Reno-based company that added the truck widening the westbound lane on Interstate 80 from Keystone Avenue to Robb Drive.

NDOT spokesman Scott Magruder says the agency received three bids, all by northern Nevada general contractors. Road and Highway Builders was the "apparent low bidder" at $44.9 million. Reno-based Q&D Construction bid $46 million, while Granite Construction came in at $50.6 million.

Work on Phase 2A of the Highway 395 Bypass, a 2-mile addition from the junction of Highway 50 East to Fairview Drive, is scheduled to begin in late September or October.

The final phase is expected to go to bid next year, and the project is slated for completion in 2011.

NDOT has 30 days for another company to submit a lower bid before officially awarding the contract to Road and Highway Builders, Magruder says. "The good news for the state and for taxpayers is that $44.9 million is below our engineers' estimate of $52.3 million."

Road and Highway Builders offered no comment on the contract.

Utah-based Ames Construction built the first phase of the 395 Bypass, a 4.5-mile stretch costing 70 million that opened in February of 2006. The second phase includes six lanes of divided freeway, interchanges at Fairview and Highway 50 East, sound and retaining walls, drainage, and a bridge over the freeway at Fifth Street. Work is scheduled for 350 working days, or about two years.

"Carson City will have about three-quarters of a freeway," Magruder says. "Right now it has about half a freeway. This project will help relieve traffic congestion more so than the last phase."

Currently almost 50,000 cars a day travel through Carson City, Magruder says. One of the biggest benefits of the new stretch of freeway is that northbound big rigs and other large trucks can access the freeway at Fairview and bypass downtown Carson Street entirely.

"They don't want to be down there, and it will help with congestion and safety," Magruder says. "We are excited to get next phase going."