Advertisement
In the spring — when tourists and locals typically ascend the winding roadway for the promise of panoramic views atop Grandad Bluff — the snow will have melted, unveiling the full scope of deterioration, the crumbling edges and caved-in asphalt.
In all, 10 spots along the route that hugs the bluffside have buckled under the elements and steep slope. The road has been closed since Aug. 19.
A video tour of the damaged roadway
To see the city of La Crosse’s detailed report on repairs needed for Bliss Road — play many more photos, click here.
To see a letter to the editor about the Bliss property published after the property was sold to the city, click here.
Repair costs have climbed to $1.8 million. Those who drove the route daily want to know when — if ever — Bliss Road will reopen.
But many want more than repairs: They want someone to blame.
Critics contend the trouble dates back to August 2002, when the city used federal money to improve Bliss Road.
“What they want is the city of La Crosse to take ownership for how the road failed,” said town of Shelby Chairwoman Lynnetta Kopp.
Added Catherine Mcnamara, a Shelby resident who lives on the bluff, “I just keep wondering who’s accountable?”
A Tribune review of city records from the 2002 reconstruction of Bliss Road didn’t produce an obvious culprit or “smoking gun.”
Even now, the principal players in that project aren’t trading accusations about what went wrong.
The final straw
Left alone, Bliss Road still would have failed under the heavy rains that pounded the region in mid-August, said Pat Caffrey, former director of the La Crosse Public Works Department.
That deluge took out 600 feet of Bliss Road.
While the work in 2002 may have exacerbated slope failures in the years that followed — “maybe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Caffrey — it wasn’t the primary cause, he and other involved in the project said.
Caffrey, who retired in 2005, said there’s no doubt the August landslides would have happened with or without the past roadwork.
“I would liken it to having my son’s cavities filled at the dentist and then having his teeth knocked out in a hockey game the next day,” said Tony Hutchens, the city’s assistant director of public works. “You don’t blame the dentist.”
The washouts before the August flooding, however, aren’t as easy to absolve. La Crosse officials admit the 2002 reconstruction may have had some unfortunate side effects, such as concentrating runoff in a dozen outfalls, two of which resulted in failures.
Rainfall triggered the first post-reconstruction landslide four years ago, when water flowing into pavement cracks loosened the road base.
Bliss Road had to be shut down intermittently in subsequent years while crews patched pavement, added asphalt or dumped wood chips down the hillside to stave off erosion.
In the summer of 2006, Mayor Mark Johnsrud estimated it would cost $300,000 to permanently repair washouts earlier that year.
The road was closed in late June 2007 and again in July after parts were undercut by erosion and water.
Problems on the rise
Surface erosion and landslides really intensified after the 2002 enhancements, Caffrey acknowledged. The primary problem before that had been settling under the pavement.
But La Crosse and DOT officials maintain the 2002 work was needed to stabilize a road on its last legs.
Steve Flottmeyer, a Wisconsin Department of Transportation engineer who oversaw the project, said even before the 2002 work, “the (road) was falling down.”
In 1983, the city shelled out more than $80,000 to repave the road after landslides.
Gordon Stewart, 68, was one of the blufftop residents behind that push.
“For a long time, it was a pretty good road,” said Stewart, who moved to his Fen Lockney Drive home 35 years ago. “But the traffic started to increase and some of the spots were starting to sag, and they would keep adding pavement to the road. Wherever there was a low spot, they just paved over that. That in itself will seal a road, but it was still in a questionable state.”
An estimated 2,140 vehicles used the road daily in 2002, and that was expected to jump to 3,180 by 2020. Trucks typically account for 10 percent of that traffic.
‘Severe cracking in 2001’
“A long time ago, the heaviest thing on that road was a horse and buggy,” Stewart said.
The existing pavement was between six and 30 inches thick, “exhibiting severe cracking” and “extensive patching,” according to a 2001 Jewell & Associates pavement design report.
Caffrey and Bob Schroeder, his predecessor as public works director, both said poor drainage was the root of the instability.
Existing culverts to channel water under the road were too small, Caffrey said, and often became plugged with leaves.
A 2001 study of the road’s subsurface found the underlying ground had a high moisture content and “poor soil types for pavement support.”
Nummelin Testing Services, which did the study for project design engineer Jewell, advised against widening the road or adding drainage or other repairs if it required earthwork.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, too, opposed cutting further into the bluff for Bliss Road work. The DNR suggested the city instead install gutters to direct runoff away from natural drainage gullies in the slope above the road.
Consultants recommended “controlled drainage paths, such as piping or culverts, below the road to direct water away from the soil below the road.”
So in 2002, the city used $1.2 million in local and federal funds to repave about 1½ miles of Bliss Road, install curb and gutter, improve ditches, and add storm sewer, guard rails, inlets and cross drains.
Crews also widened the road in spots to smooth out some of the sharper curves, said Dale Merten, another DOT project engineer.
Stewart said he noticed cracks in Bliss Road within a month of completion. “The problem was they disturbed the subsoil,” he said.
And the new curb and gutter likely increased erosion, city officials said. While water once flowed in sheets down the hillside, the curb and gutter channeled much of it to 12 outfalls, Hutchens said.
“I think they took the cheap way out, and I think they took some shortcuts by not digging down enough to get into bedrock,” said Stewart, who has a background in mechanical engineering and serves as planetarium director at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
DOT and La Crosse officials agree a better solution would have been to cut further into the hillside.
“But that’s cost prohibitive,” Hutchens said — the price tag would have been several times more than the 2002 project.
“The (2002) funding only went so far,” Flottmeyer said. “I think the city did the best they could with the funding available.”
‘Not beyond standard practice’
Stewart wants assurances that any future repairs are done to last — or not done at all. “I’m not going to spend the money again and again and again,” he said.
Though she favors repairs, Mcnamara, too, doesn’t want to see what she called another “Band-aid” put on Bliss Road. “It’s a shame that something once so beautiful, a defining characteristic of our area, has become so mismanaged,” she said.
But Caffrey sees no indication anyone can — or should — be legally blamed for the recent washouts.
“You can sue anyone for anything, but to win, you have to prove they were not following standard practices,” said Hutchens, adding an outside consultant found the 2002 construction contributed to no more than 17 percent of the damage.
“In my opinion, and in the opinion of several other consulting engineers we’ve talked to, this was not beyond standard practice,” Hutchens said.
Even with the advantage of hindsight, the 2002 design work done on Bliss Road holds up, said La Crosse Engineering Director Randy Turtenwald.
The contractor, too, acted in compliance with the plans and specifications, Caffrey said, adding that “Bliss Road was never totally stable.”
By the Numbers
Breakdown of proposed repairs along Bliss Road:
Construct a retaining wall the length of the site and backfill; plant grass seed to stabilize slope; replace all pavement, asphalt curb and guardrail.
Construct a retaining wall the length of the site and backfill; plant grass seed to stabilize slope; replace all pavement, asphalt curb and guardrail; install two inlets and storm sewer pipes.
Place shot rock to stabilize slope; replace asphalt curb, salvage and reinstall guardrail; some new pavement.
Construct retaining wall entire length of site and backfill; plant grass seed to stabilize slope; replace all pavement and asphalt curb; salvage and reinstall guardrail. Install one inlet and storm sewer pipe.
Cut a 3-foot-deep by 8-foot-wide shelf to stabilize edge; backfill; replace cracked and settled pavement; construct new asphalt curb; salvage and reinstall guardrail. Add one inlet and 26-foot long pipe.
Construct a retaining wall entire length of site and
backfill; plant grass seed to stabilize slope; tie 24-inch pipe into existing inlet to channel stormwater to an outlet at site No. 8.
Cut a 3-foot deep by 8-foot-wide shelf to stabilize edge; backfill; replace cracked and settled pavement; construct new asphalt curb; salvage and reinstall guardrail. Install pipe from site No. 6.
Optional: Extend work from site No. 7.
Place shot rock to stabilize slope; cut a 3-foot deep by 8-foot wide shelf to stabilize edge; backfill; replace cracked and settled pavement; salvage guardrail;
24-inch storm sewer pipe extends into this site from site No. 6 and outlets onto shot rock and flume.
Optional: Extend work from site No 8; construct new ditch inlet and 24-inch storm sewer pipe and outflow; construct grouted flume at outflow to stop erosion on downhill slope.
Cut a 3-foot-deep by 8-foot-wide shelf to stabilize edge; backfill; replace cracked and settled pavement; construct new asphalt curb; salvage and reinstall guardrail;
construct new ditch inlet and 24-inch storm sewer pipe and outflow; construct grouted flume at outflow to stop erosion on downhill slope.
Optional: Extend work from site No. 9.
Cut 3-foot-deep by 8-foot-wide shelf to stabilize the edge; backfill; replace cracked and settled pavement; construct new asphalt curb; salvage and reinstall guardrail.
Source: Westbrook Associated Engineers Inc.
A timeline of Bliss Road
Sources: La Crosse Public Library Archives and La Crosse Tribune files
Samantha Marcus can be reached at (608) 791-8220 or smarcus@lacrossetribune.com.
wiseup wrote on Feb 5, 2008 9:21 AM: