BREMERTON — Plans are nearing completion for the Lebo Boulevard Improvement Project.

At a community meeting Feb. 22 to discuss the project, mock drawings were presented to community members showcasing how the street could look when finished.

“We took your input from the last meeting, plus some additional constraints that I threw in the pot myself,” said Chal Martin, director of Public Works and Utilities.

Jerry Hauth, managing engineer for the city, said he went through all the feedback from the previous community meeting, as well as comments sent in at other times, to figure out the community’s priorities.

“What we found is, people wanted lights,” he said. “Parking was the most important thing across the board; it had by far the most advocates. Bike lanes were popular.

“We took all of those parameters and tried to put them into what would make sense to us as a project.”

The cross-section images presented showed possibilities of the final outcome, including a bike line and sidewalks. However, the images were skewed slightly, so there were wider right-of-way passages on one side instead of the other.

“These cross sections … those are structured around a road that would be built in the center line of the existing road,” Hauth said. “In some cases, we have maybe 17 feet of right of way remaining on one side, and maybe 6 feet remaining on the other side.”

However, Hauth said the plan was to “serpentine the road … to kind of balance that out.”

“Don’t look at this and think, ‘Gosh, there’s 17-and-a-half feet on that side and I’ve only got 6 feet on my side, that’s not fair,’ ” Hauth said. “That’s not at all what we’re proposing. We just drew it that way because we don’t know where it’s going to be right now.”

Cross sections of what Lebo Boulevard might look like after improvements are made were presented at the community meeting Feb. 22. “These cross sections … those are structured around a road that would be built in the center line of the existing road,” said Jerry Hauth, managing engineer. He added the plans would change to “balance out” the right of way on either side of the road.

But the improvements to the road itself was the main topic of conversation at the meeting, specifically the method the city would use to make repairs.

There were two main methods mentioned at the meeting, both of which would leave the current road rubblized — turning the road into rubble to use as a base for new asphalt. The first method involved using a frequency-resonating beam to smash the road into rubber. The second involved destroying the road using a machine with flailing hammers.

“In both cases, you would come back after it’s been rubblized, roll it, get it good and compacted and build your road on top of that,” Hauth said.

A third method involved a sort of guillotine method to break the road up into more manageable sections for removal.

He went on to say that there was concern brought up at the previous meeting about damage to the nearby houses from vibrations caused by the construction equipment.

“As these projects have been done elsewhere, there have been no claims, no damage associated with the vibrations,” Hauth said.

He added that the city planned to meet with people living off Lebo Boulevard individually to discuss the upcoming construction and help ensure that, if there is any damage, there would be sufficient proof for the residents to place a claim.

“We’re going to be out meeting with each one of you folks, and with your cooperation, we’re going to videotape your house and document all of the walls, the foundation and stuff,” Hauth said, “and if there is something that shows up in the follow up, then you’ve got a valid claim.”

The decision between which method the city would choose could easily come down to which is more readily available, because other aspects, such as productivity and cost, were pretty similar.

“They both can do about one lane mile per day,” Hauth said. “That’s part of the beauty: both of them go really, really fast.”

When an audience member asked about price, Hauth explained, “I think the price per machine is probably pretty equivalent. They all produce about the same amount, and they’re able to do the same amount of work.

“I think the challenge is going to be, the frequency-resonating beam (one of the proposed methods) is maybe not readily available out in the west coast yet,” Hauth said, “so most of the work around here has been the guillotine chopping block. The flailing hammer is also used.”

The appeal of destroying the current road and repaving, using the rubble as a base, was about cost.

“It’s something that, by leaving the concrete in place as we break it, we’re going to save the trucking cost to and from, plus the milling cost to reduce that down to aggregate,” Hauth said.

One community member mentioned concerns about the utilities in Lebo Boulevard, and about how the construction may affect the sewer and water lines.

Hauth explained, “We would cut a 5-foot swath, 2-and-a-half feet on either side of where that water main lies, and ten as we need to fragment that, we’d come back and cut that into 3-foot or 4-foot increments, and then roll that. But the water, the sewer, the storm water, all that stuff, you need to be cognizant of where that is and take precautions.

“With that said, they (construction groups who have used these methods before) haven’t had problems with it,” Hauth said. “They take the proper precautions.”

For more information or to provide feedback, contact Bremerton’s Managing Engineer Jerry Hauth at 360-473-2354 or jerry.hauth@ci.bremerton.wa.us.