NORTH DAKOTA ( KXNET ) — For episode 20 of The Voice of the People: Nicholas Quallich with Bismarck City Engineer Gabe Schell.

Schell talked about current street projects, balancing the number of projects, some of the most common concerns of citizens, and more.

Here is a transcription of the podcast.

Nicholas Quallich: Hello and thanks for joining us for The Voice of the People podcast here on KXNET.com. I’m Nicholas Quallich and today we’re talking about all things traffic and who better to join us than the city engineer for the city of Bismarck. That’s Gabe Schell. Gabe, thanks for being here.

Gabe Schell: Thank you, Nicholas. It’s my pleasure to be able to visit with you about all things traffic and infrastructure in the city of Bismarck.

Quallich: I appreciate it. So first of all, how does one get involved in this line of work?

Schell: Yeah, I guess you have to have a personal passion for infrastructure and try to figure out how to manage systems and try to figure out the best way to optimize those systems. So it’s kind of most engineers have that sort of background, whether it’s a civil engineer, a electrical engineer, a chemical engineer. So it’s always trying to tinker with things and try to figure out ways to make them better and solve problems. So what we’re trying to do every day is solve infrastructure-related problems for our citizens.

Quallich: So what interested you about this particular job at the City of Bismarck?

Schell: I think this is a spectacular job for a civil engineer to be able to plan, direct, and oversee the municipal infrastructure for a thriving community of 75,000 or so residents. That means we have 75,000 opinions of how things should be done, and we value all of those opinions because we can’t be everywhere at once, and so we definitely use that input to help inform our decisions. But it’s a great job. We have a great team working for us, and we have a good public that supports spending dollars and spending resources towards getting good infrastructure for our community.

Quallich: Yeah, it never fails to amaze me how well my guests transition from one subject to the next because you mentioned, you know, different opinions as far as like how people should do their jobs and so on. And we’ll get to that in a little bit. But first, I want to talk about what is seemingly, I don’t want to say never-ending, but it’s ongoing season of construction here at Bismarck. So, there are projects here and there. Tell us about some of the projects that you all have been focusing on so far this summer?

Schell: Sure. In any given year, we’ll have a handful of projects, you know, 20 to 30 separate contracts with various contractors working on any of our systems, whether it’s our pavement system or our water main system or our sanitary sewer systems, electrical systems. And at this point in time, what the public is seeing, you know, in our late June kind of time frame is we’re working real hard on our 7th and 9th Street project that we’re working with the DOT, the Department of Transportation, on that state highway that runs through our community. You’ll also, if you live on the south side of town, know that we, the last couple of months and for the next couple of months, are working on our South Washington Street reconstruction project. That’s a $17 million asset that we’ll be investing into the community that will revitalize that corridor from a two-lane rural ditch section to a multi-lane facility with a roundabout at Burley Avenue and a traffic signal at Santa Fe and sidewalks and streetlights and trails and all those things that our citizenry expects from those sorts of transportation corridors.

Quallich: Sure. Now, of course, it is a lot more impactful, I would say, when you live in Bismarck like I do and so many others do day to day. I think it’s perhaps a little bit of a different scenario when you’re just passing through and you see those construction projects every once in a while. So with that in mind though Gabe, tell us about the planning behind this because obviously the summertime is the ideal time to do construction projects versus you know when there’s snow and ice on the ground and so on. So tell us about the process in determining how many projects you can do you know effectively at the same time not trying to make all 75,000 people upset that it seems like everywhere they turn there’s a traffic cone.

Schell: Yeah, it is definitely a balancing act. And some of the more complicated projects obviously have a longer lead time. I’ll bring your attention the I-94 interstate exit 161 project on the east end of town. That project has been five years in the making from when the DOT approached the city and started talking about some of the deficiencies at that corridor and really started looking at what are the kind of concepts that we could entertain and then picking one of those concepts and then designing that concept full out, knowing exactly where each piece in part will go, and then now having a contractor on board for the next three summers to construct this facility to show some of the timeframe of some of these multi-year type projects. I’ll compare that to some of our lower complexity projects of if someone reports a sidewalk that’s damaged today, we would go out and inspect it and then write that landowner a notification to say your sidewalks need to be repaired yet this summer. So, some of those things, we don’t even know where our project is this summer where that activity will occur, whereas other ones we definitely have a longer lead time. And then there’s most of our projects fall somewhere in between, where we have a good idea of what that system is, what the deficiencies are, and then try to plan and program a package of improvements and whether that’s an independent improvement that just looks at that water main or if we look at something to say, hey, we’re already touching the water main, that’s probably a good opportunity for us to repair the streets or have that done in the same construction season. So let’s do both of those at the same time under a same contractor or schedule that way. That gives us some ways that we can try to minimize the impacts to the public. But unfortunately, there’s only so many roads and there’s only so many ways to get to where you want to get to. And by and large, we need to use these summer months where we can dig holes and re-compact them, unlike the winter where we can dig a hole, but you just can’t put it back the way you found it when everything’s frozen around you. So we need to use those summer months as well as we can and be as productive as we can with that time.

Quallich: And having covered city council work extensively at a previous job, I can certainly appreciate, and I understand a little bit more of the inner working of how you know City Council or City Commission goes through budgeting, how they determine you know especially on the traffic side and engineering side how many projects they line up at the same time. So can you give us a kind of an idea as far as how many projects you have into the future already on the books versus how many of those top how many of those projects as you just alluded to sort of just kind of pop up and as someone’s mentioning to you?

Schell: Sure, yeah, and most of our projects that are maintenance projects, so it’s always going to be a water main replacement project. There’s dollars in the budget for the utility to replace a certain dollar amount of water mains in a given year. It’s just our job to then coordinate on what is that going to be next year versus the year after that versus the year after that. We use the resources and the input that we get from our public works departments that oftentimes are the ones paying the bill and the ones maintaining that asset on behalf of the community to help inform what the highest priority should be for next year and the year after and so on. So many of our projects are in that way, Nicholas, that it’s a pavement rehab project. We know we’re gonna have one every year. We’re probably a year to two years out with our planning of what they are, five years out on kind of a longer term, but as we also want to be responsive to something that is a tenth highest priority and is the fifth year out on our program, if something changes, if all of a sudden that road degrades faster than what we thought it was going to, have the ability to accelerate that project and move that to a sooner construction year to get that repair effectively made sooner.

Quallich: And I don’t believe I’m actually going to say this word out loud at this time of the year, but I want to talk about snow for just a second there. Talking about planning far out, how far out before the next round of winter hits are you guys looking ahead towards how much chemicals to bring in, etc.? Give us an idea about that.

Schell: So from the standpoint of Public Works, that’s outside of my primary domain in terms of maintaining the snow operations, but I know that those chemical treatments, it’s definitely a year in advance to take stock of what we have for inventory now on sand and salt and our brine supply, and then make sure that we have enough for what that winter is. If we have a nice winter and not a lot of snow activity, then there’s some carryover chemicals and carryover things that we can use. We also just don’t want to be sitting there in the middle of January needing more things brought in. So making sure that we have enough for that winter is kind of the main goal at all times.

Quallich: Well, and I ask that because as you mentioned, you know, obviously chemicals are chemicals and they can do damage over time. So, as far as you’re aware, how long has this sort of mix been utilized and found to be, you know, I guess the most effective versus being more harmful as far as the roads go?

Schell: I guess most of the what we do for the City of Bismarck, you know, street control for snow and ice or a snow and ice control plan. A lot of it is just using a brine mixture that we make on site and so the the chemicals that we make that that salt mixed with the beet juice so it sticks on the road. We’ll only use that during certain weather occasions. If it’s too cold it doesn’t work. If it’s too warm you don’t need to do it. So there’s only a certain range where we use that that tool. Other tools obviously would just be a more defined sand treatment but if it gets too cold for that, you’re just placing it on the ice and it just rolls off the ice anyway, it doesn’t do anything. So just making sure we’re using the right treatment at the right time, but we’ve been using a brine mixture for over 10 years, maybe even towards 15 years as a solution, as part of the solution in our snow and ice control plan.

Quallich: And how often, I mean, you’ve mentioned, you know, like when there’s a broken piece of pavement, people call in and say, hey, I noticed this here and so on. How often do you guys look at the plan and maybe for like possible improvements or better ideas from the public as to how you can maybe kind of adjust that?

Schell: Yeah, there’s probably two ways I can answer that one. Nicholas, we take the standard, if there’s a pothole on a roadway that gets recorded and needs to be repaired as soon as possible. That’s not something we can plan for a fix that pothole four years from now. And then, so that’s more on the Public Works Street Department’s domain to maintain that facility once it’s up and running. When we look at our projects and more of our more significant investments that we make in these facilities in terms of milling the whole surface down or doing a larger scale, you know, crack sealing program, we’ll go out and survey all of the roads about every four or five years to do an inventory of what that pavement condition is. And if it’s a good pavement condition, we want to keep it good. And so, we can do preventative maintenance activities that seal up those cracks and make sure that pavement lasts as long as it can. And likewise, if we find some candidates that are in poor condition, trying to find the right improvement at that right pavement’s life. So, I mean, there might be occasions where we know the road’s bad, but it’s not going to get any worse than what it is now. So, we know we’re going to have to do a large reconstruction to fix it. So, that actually kind of falls off the priority list because we know that it’s not something that is as time-sensitive as maybe other improvements that if we wait a year it turns from a lower cost preventative maintenance project to a higher cost reconstruction project. So those are the ones that wE want to make sure we’re capturing so we can use those dollars as wisely as possible and stretch out those funds to do as much good as we can.

Quallich: And so let’s get back to projects. One other big project I know that you guys have been addressing, are some of the traffic lights adjustments, namely with the LED trade-outs. So is that kind of along the same, similar vein of being looked at every couple years and figuring out if these are the most effective systems and how good the lights are and so on?

Schell: So our public works street utility or street light utility has evaluated the dollars that it takes to run a high-pressure sodium light bulb inside that luminaire for all of your street lighting. These would be the lights that illuminate the streets and the sidewalks. And it made the decision to move out of the high-pressure sodium light bulbs and replace them with a lower electrical usage LED and really has accelerated that program. So in 2024, we’ll replace what amounts to half of all of our light fixtures with an LED system pretty much north of Divide Avenue will be pretty much everything that we’ll do this year, followed by next year in 2025 doing the remaining non-LED bulbs, everything south of Divide Avenue. So, in a matter of a couple of years, pretty much the entirety of our community will be using an LED system that pays for itself just from the decreased use of electricity over the course of just a couple of years for us to be able to make that investment.

Quallich: I was going to say, the – and also – I think that also kind of comes along – it sounds like, anyway – in a similar vein of what’s happening with all of the – you know, the fluorescent.. trying to get rid of those lights before that certain deadline gets in their homes, too? You just can’t get them anymore, or eventually won’t be able to get them as well. So that’ll, people I think will finally appreciate, or most people will finally appreciate the savings they’ll get, never mind all the health benefits of going to LED.

Schell: Yeah, there’s definitely the availability component that will continue now too. The manufacturers know that LED is a better solution for them, so that’s what they’re investing their research into making those products better. So even if we wanted to hang on to our old light bulb style, it’ll be just become more difficult and more difficult as time progresses to secure that sort of replacement technology. So it’s good for us as an organization, as a community, to maybe not be on the leading edge of innovation, but on the leading edge and making sure that those are proven countermeasures and proven improvements, and then kind of jump on board after everyone else has taken their initial licks on potentially some more innovative technologies.

Quallich: Sure. So we mentioned again, all those voices living in the Bismarck community. What’s the biggest concern or I guess complaint if you want that you hear from citizens more often than not?

Schell: I guess Nicholas, it’s usually something that affects them. I mean, that’s usually the biggest thing that if it’s in front of their house or if it’s on their route or if it’s troubling them for their personal reason, that’s what is probably the commonality, that common thread that weaves all these stories together. So, that could be as simple as some sidewalk work done in front of their house that wasn’t up to their standards. Or it could be they’re trying to take a left turn at a traffic signal and the green light’s not long enough, so it affects them in that way. So, that’s probably the common thread. We find that no one really comments on something if they see something out in the area that doesn’t affect them. It’s like an out of sight, out of mind. They might see it and move on just like most, I guess, humans do. But that’s the common thread between all of it is that it affects them in some way, whether it’s at their house or it’s on their way to work, or it affects the safety of their children or whatever that issue might be. So it might be a mile away from their house or their work, but it is something that they use that street or that corridor or that street crossing and want to make sure that it’s done safely. So without getting into specifics of what the types are, that seems to be the main thread between them all.

Quallich: And I would say, you know, as being someone who’s on the media side of things, as you are as well, you guys do a pretty fine job in getting the word out ahead of time for when there are, you know, alternate routes and so on that people need to take. You guys get them out ahead of time. I mean, we have to get them to people, but I think you guys put out enough warning to let people know that, hey, in case you go down the street all the time. But that’s also the trick, too, I think, and sometimes I know it can be frustrating is that, you know, you want to get the word out, but at the same time, there’s only a certain amount of people that are kind of having their finger on the pulse, more or less, as far as what’s actually going to happen on their streets and so on.

Schell: Yeah, and there’s definitely a timing component of, we know that there’s going to be work on a certain roadway, but it doesn’t really pay to tell everyone that sometime in July it’s going to occur because it’s not happening right now and it’s not going to happen for a couple more weeks. So, we try to get that message out, and we tailor that message specific to the project and what we’re doing and who it may impact. We’ll find commonly we’ll send out press releases, you know, a week before the work’s commencing. We’ll also put out digital message board signs out on the corridor itself because we find that, even though we might put out a press release, if they follow our social media, if they listen to the news media messages that are sent on our behalf, they would pick up that. But there’s a lot of people that are just driving that road. And those are really the people that we’re trying to connect with. So if you’re driving the road on that Tuesday and that digital message board that’s out on the site that says starting next week, Monday, this road is closed or there’ll be lane restrictions or whatever that message is that we’re trying to share with the public, we found that’s a really effective way on those projects where there might be a detour in place or there will be a significant change to that corridor. If we’re just taking away a parking lane to put in a traffic signal control feed point or something along those lines, it’s probably not as much newsworthy because most of the traffic can still operate just fine with that restriction in place. But when we’re doing something significant, we try to make sure that that message is out there for lots of eyes to see.

Quallich: And as far as, you know, you mentioned projects and projecting things in the future with budgets and so on. So could you pretty much tackle any sort of, or I shouldn’t say any, but a lot of projects that if something, if there was a major breakdown, let’s say, are there enough money in the budget reserves that you guys can tackle a pretty significant project if it were to happen?

Schell: I think that always depends on what that significant piece means. I mean, if it’s a water main break in the middle of winter, we dig a hole in the middle of winter and fix that 20-foot chunk of pipe and repair it and fill it back with something. But we know that that’s going to not settle the way we want to, so we put some sacrificial concrete on top of it and we say, this is good enough for now, and we come back and fix it later. But if we do that enough places reactively, those are really good candidates to be more proactive and then use our summertime construction season to say, let’s go ahead and take that water main out of service under our control during the month of July to be able to do this, you know, three blocks worth of work so that we can prevent that unexpected catastrophe from happening, which costs obviously way more when we’re digging a hole in the middle of January than if we just took the, bite the bullet and took on the entire block length and repaired the whole thing and then have a somewhat higher assurance that that segment of water main won’t break on us again for the next foreseeable future.

Quallich: Sure, well and I mentioned that because our friends in Mandan just had a pretty significant water break and so having that having those resources and those the money available to fix it is significant. So on that note, what have you found as far as the longevity of the water mains here in Bismarck? Are they you know is it are they a pretty good lifetime? Are they less than 50 years or so?

Schell: Sure, a lot of the water mains that we’re replacing now are cast iron water main. That’s the material type is a cast iron that was installed anywhere from 75-100 years ago. So it is a very old pipe. That was the main type of pipe. I mean, we have even older pipes that were made of wood, but those have been circulated out of commission over time, obviously. But that’s kind of our oldest pipes type that we have now. And our priority is going into those lower diameter, smaller six-inch and eight-inch cast iron mains and replacing those, as well as having opportunity to replace the lead service lines that lead from our city water main into the homes of that resident. So giving them an opportunity to replace that lead service line as part of this project at a substantial cost share from both the city and the state of North Dakota to cost share in that lead service line replacement. So we’re replacing those with a plastic material pipe that has a longevity of 50 to 75 years again. So we’ll dig that hole today and hopefully, we don’t have to dig that hole again for the next 50 or so years. But it’s infrastructure and infrastructure ages and that’s why it’s important for us as a community to make that continual reinvestment in that infrastructure so we aren’t left with a bunch of old things that are all falling apart all at the same time. That’s when a community gets in a lot of danger.

Quallich That’s right. So, whether it’s yours or you’ve heard back from the community, is there a project where people have gone or come to you and said: ‘Hey, Gabe, you know, boy, it would be really great if we saw X or Y’? Is there some sort of a dream project that you would love to get done or just people have been telling you they’d love to see in Bismarck?

Schell: I mean, that’s a challenge because obviously, it could be a dream project for party A, which might be the nightmare project for party B. We’ve always heard a lot of things about north-south connectivity in our community and how do I get from the north side of town to the south side of town faster. And that matters a lot to that person who’s on the south side that just wants to get north or vice versa, but to that person who lives on that corridor and uses that same street to park their car or to have their trees in their boulevard, that sounds like a nightmare project to rip out all of this street infrastructure and make it five lanes wide to get north-south through our community. So that is something that we always look for those opportunities to improve our transportation network or improve our networks that people interact with. Sometimes we might solve that problem in a different way. So even though someone might say, I want better north-south connectivity, if we can provide better east-west connectivity and more things to look at as we stretch our community further east and west, there’s less of a need to go north and south. So we might take the input we hear from the public and condense that and maybe try to solve the problem in a different way than maybe that person thought of the simple solution of just take all these trees and make a five-lane facility that you don’t get to come on or off except in my driveway on the north side of town and then the place I want to go on the south side of town. That obviously solves that person’s problem, but it creates a whole slew of problems for everyone else trying to use that system.

Quallich: And then I suspect no bullet trains getting from north to south, east to west, anytime soon?

Schell: Not a lot of trolley activity, but I’m willing to hear someone out if they want to come up with some sort of cool trolley solution.

Quallich: Well, okay, now, so it’s now it’s your turn. So what would you like to ask from the public, namely those letting in or going in and out of Bismarck daily?

Schell: I mean, my biggest thing is always just having patience for things. I mean, it is an inconvenience anytime we disrupt that daily commute. I mean, it’s an inconvenience for even me when I’m surprised that, wait, we’re taking this traffic signal out of service today? I thought that was happening next week. Like, whoops, okay, I’ll learn. And even I’m learning lessons as I’m trying to make my way through the commuter of what that contractor schedule might be. But ultimately, for the public to be patient with things, I know it is difficult because it does add time or it does mean that you’re traveling in a different route. But then it’s just being respectful of that new route that we might take an arterial roadway out of commission for a period of time. It means there might be more traffic on that local system. So please drive that local road as if it was your street. And even though 25 sounds like a really slow speed to drive your car at. It’s really fast if you’re standing at your mailbox and a car goes past you at 30 miles an hour. That is very uncomfortable for you as a pedestrian trying to cross the street or standing on your street and getting your mail. So just being respectful of those construction sites as well as then if you’re taking alternate routes, being respectful of those routes that you’ve chosen.

Quallich: You hit the nail right on the head. You got to be able to speed limits when they’re past your construction zones because that’s someone’s mom or dad or brother or uncle.

Schell: Yeah. Imagine someone coming into my office right now with a car. It’s very crazy to think of that, but that is their office. Their office is outside and they’re working next to live traffic, and that’s definitely something that we want everyone to be safe and come home from work every day.

Quallich: Sure. So if people see this interview and they say, oh, I’d like to learn a little bit more about how things work and how decisions are made. Where would you send us to find out more information about how things at the City of Bismarck work?

Schell: We have a lot of good resources on our website at Bismarcknd.gov. And then if you go backslash streets, it’s all the things related to construction. So we’ll have a map out there of all the construction sites that we have this summer, what the type of work is going to be commencing there. It’s not live and up to date showing that there’s a vehicle there today, but it’s all the work that’s programmed or under contract for the year. So it’s a good resource for the public just to get a pulse of what to expect this summer. Hopefully, they see that area and they get excited. That means an improvement there, but it also means that there’s going to be that period of disruption that their normal day-to-day might be a little bit different getting through that site. but bismarcknd.gov/streets is kind of our one-stop shop for all of our project profiles and renderings of kind of those higher-profile projects for the public to view.

Quallich: Okay, well Gabe, I appreciate your time. I know you have a lot of things on your hands, namely projects, and just looking ahead to the future. So I learned something today, and I’m sure a lot of our viewers have too. So again, thanks so much for your time. And thank you, as always, for watching The Voice of the People podcast here on kxnet.com. We’ll be back soon with more on the questions and answers affecting you, because remember, it’s your voice that matters: The Voice of the People.

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