Friday, December 13, 2013

Contract approved for design of bus hub

Mountain Rides finalizes agreement with local architectural firm

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By TERRY SMITH
Express Staff Writer

The Mountain Rides Transportation Authority board of directors has approved a contract for design of a Ketchum Transportation Hub that will serve as a transfer point for Mountain Rides bus routes in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area. A Mountain Rides Silver Route bus is shown here dropping passengers off Thursday at the River Run base of Bald Mountain. Photo by Roland Lane

    The Mountain Rides Transportation Authority board of directors on Wednesday approved a contract with a Ketchum architectural firm for design of a Ketchum Transportation Hub that will serve as a transfer point for bus routes in the Ketchum and Sun Valley areas.
    Approval of the $90,975 contract with Eggers Associates came at a special meeting of the Mountain Rides board, where the wording of the contract was fine-tuned by board members, Mountain Rides attorney Michael Pogue and Eggers Associates’ owner Kurt Eggers. The vote for approval was unanimous.
    While earlier discussions by the Mountain Rides board concerned whether or not the city of Ketchum would be a party to the contract, ultimately the city was included as a participant.
    “It’s the city’s preference that they be a signatory,” Pogue said. “Even though they don’t have any responsibilities under the contract, it gives them a certain comfort level.”
    Awarding the contract was previously approved by the Ketchum City Council, which also authorized allocation of $19,620 toward the contract price.
    The total cost for building the hub is expected to be around $450,000, with about 70 percent of the funding coming from grants from the Federal Transportation Authority.
    Design of the hub is expected to be completed in the spring of 2014 and construction is expected to start that summer.
    The hub will be built on Sun Valley Road, on both sides of the intersection of Sun Valley Road and East Avenue. A conceptual design provides parking for up to five buses, sidewalk extensions at all four corners of the intersection to facilitate pedestrian traffic and islands in the middle of East Avenue for bicycle parking or public art. The hub will serve as a transfer point for the six bus routes that serve the Ketchum and Sun Valley areas. Two of them are year-around routes and the other four are seasonal, operating during peak winter and summer tourist seasons.
    While the contract is with Eggers Associates, three other firms are involved in design as subcontractors. Those firms are Community Rising/Living Architecture, of Ketchum, Galena Engineering, also of Ketchum, and Hale Engineering, of Salt Lake City.

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