HRSR WORKSESSION 01-05-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Fr;r:;e1C- • !V:4ri Howard R. Green Company December 24, 2003 File: 813320J-0325 Ms. Cathy Mehelich Director of Economic Development City of Elk River 13065 Orono Parkway Elk River, MN 55330 RE: DOWNTOWN PARKING EXPANSION AND AUXILIARY ITEMS Dear Ms. Mehelich: As you are aware, I have been requested to do some preliminary design and cost estimating on a number of issues related to the downtown redevelopment project and the expansion of parking. This letter is intended to summarized these issues and provide some background into each of them. They • are as follows: A. Pedestrian Bridge Across Trunk Highway 10 The first issue explored was the potential of constructing a pedestrian bridge across Trunk Highway (TH) 10. The first location we looked at was immediately west of Jackson Avenue from the parking lot on the north side of TH 10 to the south side. There is virtually no area open for the landing of a bridge at this location. For this reason, we moved the location slightly to the east, as shown on the attached exhibit. The bridge could just as easily be moved slightly to the west and be located from the parking area on the north side of TH 10 to the parking lot behind Kemper's drugstore on the south side of the highway. As we looked at the style of bridge and means of accessing it, we explored the highway right-of-way relative to the railroad right-of-way. We have assumed that we will be unable to construct any portion of a pedestrian bridge within the railroad right-of-way. The highway requirements are a vertical clearance of 17 feet 5 inches, and a minimum horizontal clear zone of 11 feet from the edge of the travel lane. The other criteria we used in the preliminary design was a minimum slope on the ramps leading to the bridge of 12:1, as per the Americans With Disabilities Act. Given these design criteria and the available space, the only type of ramps accessing the pedestrian bridge would be switchback ramps—a total of three on each side to get to the vertical clearance needed. Because of the width restrictions between the horizontal clear zone and the railroad right-of-way, we believe it will only be possible to build the ramps • eight feet wide. Since only eight feet of width is possible on the ramps accessing the bridge, we have assumed that the bridge itself would be eight feet in width. As a Ltr-120903-Mehelich.doc 1326 Energy Park Drive • St. Paul, MN 55108 • 651/644-4389 fax 651/644-9446 toll free 888/368-4389