City recommends awarding parking study contract

Boulevard Transportation Group, based in British Columbia, could be leading the city’s next major parking study.

Boulevard Transportation Group, based in British Columbia, could be leading the city’s next major parking study.

City staff are recommending council award the $94,905 contract to Boulevard, one of seven companies to submit a proposal, for the study that will look at parking in the downtown core.

As it was noted in the administrative report, Boulevard will also be working with local firm Inukshuk Planning and Development as well as the Victoria Policy Institute.

In reviewing the seven proposals that came forward, city staff considered the project team, with a weighting of 30 per cent; approach and methodology also at 30 per cent; past relevant experience at 25; per cent and gave a local preference rating at five per cent.

After that, the city looked at the price tag for the work for those proposals that had ended up with at least 80 per cent of the other factors, giving the fees a 10 per cent weight in the evaluation.

By the time the city had gotten to the fee portion of the evaluation, Boulevard was joined by only two other contractors that had their fees open: AECOM, which has a local office in Whitehorse, submitted a fee of $102,530 and another local business, YES, submitted a fee of $132,395.

It was Boulevard which came out on top in the final evaluation total with 83.5 per cent, receiving 26.4 for its project team, 26 for approach and methodology, 19.7 for past experience, 1.4 for local preference and 10 for having the lowest fees.

“Boulevard had the best proposal in the project team and approach and methodology criteria,” it was noted in the administrative report presented to council by city planner Ben Campbell.

“It also had the lowest fees and therefore received the highest marks. The procedures for the selection of professional consulting services policy states that in the event that there is a spread of five per cent or less between the top-ranked consultants, the rating team may, at their sole discretion,

interview the consultants to make any adjustments to the scores.

“Boulevard and AECOM did have a spread of less than five per cent in their final scores. The evaluation team did contact both consultants to get clarification on certain proposal issues and adjustments to the scores were made.”

In the end, AECOM, which was set to work with former city planning manager Lesley Cabott in a consulting role if they were awarded the work, came out with a score of 80.6.

The proposal received 25.1 for the project team, 24.3 for approach and methodology, 20.9 for past experience, 3.3 for local preference and 6.7 for fees.

The only other proposal to make it to the fee opening was YES, which got 23.6 for the project team, 24.5 on approach and methodology, 22 for past experience, 2.9 for local preference and 1.7 for its fee.

Other bids came from:

• Rich and Associates of Michigan with a total evaluation score of 66.3;

• Mackenzie Municipal Services Agency of Alberta with a total evaluation score of 41.6;

• Associated Engineering of Vancouver with a total evaluation score of 62.1; and

• Bunt and Associates of B.C. with a total evaluation score of 70.6.

Council will vote on the recommendation next week.