3720 - Board of Claims

even though the as-planned sequence showed Intercounty working only in Section One doing
Phase 2 work (permanent left-side reconstruction). 13
As a result of this ongoing delay and disruption, and PennDOT’s insistence that
Intercounty continue to work around same in an inefficient manner, Intercounty was prevented
from finishing the Project by the November 6, 2002 Contract completion date. In fact, by the
end of November 2002, the weather had become too cold for paving, and PennDOT suspended
work on the Project from December 2002 to April 2003. The Project was finally completed on
June 17, 2003. By this time, Intercounty had been delayed 223 days and had its work disrupted
throughout the Project as a result of the utility pole relocation problems.
Although various reasons have been suggested and/or hypothesized as the cause of this
long delay in completion of the utility pole relocation and, hence, the source of the delay and
disruption on the Project, the totality of evidence presented establishes that the poor initial
planning efforts by PennDOT in the Pre-Contract design phase (discussed above), exacerbated
by PennDOT’s inadequate responses to the problems encountered with pole relocation during
construction, were the root causes of this problem. Specifically, we find PennDOT’s response to
the pole relocation problems during construction (post-Contract) to be inadequate in the
following respects: A) PennDOT’s exceedingly slow and inadequate response to Intercounty’s
requests for assistance in expediting utility pole relocation during the first six months of the
Project; B) PennDOT’s decision to abandon the Construction Sequence it prescribed by Contract
in lieu of demobilizing for a period of time in response to the delayed pole relocations; and C)
13 In June 2002, Intercounty was in Section Three performing Phase 3 work (excavation for permanent right-side
reconstruction); in Section Two it was performing Phase 1 work (subbase and BCBC for temporary right-side
widening) while the Utilities were there relocating wires and cables; and in Section One it was performing phase 2
work (excavation and subbase for permanent left-side reconstruction).
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