E 238 Street Improvement Division Responsibilities (Design Office Responsibilities)

As a result of the adoption of the street improvement policies as presented in the foregoing discussion, (the street design office)¹ the Design Group within BOE's Street Improvement Division (SID) has been assigned various responsibilities. Some of these duties are reviewing the annual list of capital improvements, making preliminary project cost estimates, and considering the possible effects of these policies on street design standards. The SID must prepare the required information promptly and accurately, since the data obtained are used in preparing the City budget, as well as for assigning and more equitably distributing workloads to the various design offices and the Survey Division. Some of these responsibilities are briefly outlined below.

E 238.1 Review of Capital Improvement Project Lists

The list of capital improvement projects and those assessment projects for which public fund appropriations are or will be provided is reviewed by the (street design office)¹ SID. This list is examined annually for any changes in scope or for changes in the project cost estimate of 10 percent or more.  Also, any projects which are to be split, added, or deleted from the list are noted and a new (Form CAO-39) Request to Oversight Committee Form is prepared. (For a further outline of the street design office function in regard to completing the capital improvement project review and the Form CAO-39, refer to Part C, Operations and Control, when this part of the Manual is printed.)¹ See Procedures 1.4 - Program Master Schedules and 1.5 - Program Oversight Committee in Chapter 1 - Overview of Project Delivery of the BOE Project Delivery Manual for more information.

E 238.2 Project Cost Estimates

The cost estimate on all capital improvement projects must be reviewed in order that they may be included in the CAO’s Five Year Capital Program. See E 241, Cost Estimates. The (design office)¹ Project Engineer should request cost estimates as soon as possible from the Bureaus of Street Lighting and Street Services, the Department of Transportation, and any other bureaus, departments, or offices that may be involved. It is important that the preliminary cost estimate for a project be accurate, since it is used to determine the priority rating.  The priority rating shows the relative benefit gained by constructing one job after another.  If the preliminary cost estimate has been underestimated, the job is given a higher priority rating than it deserves and does not fall into its proper place on the priority list. As previously mentioned, each Council District has a limited amount of funds allocated for these improvements. Where subsequent estimates show the costs to have doubled or tripled, this results in the project being underfinanced. This means unnecessary delay in construction of projects that are deserving of a higher priority and is unfair to residents of the other Council Districts in which these other projects may be located.

Footnote:

1. The text in parenthesis is from the legacy Street Design Manual text and has been superseded by the italicized text that follows.