Bighorn River – 1M W Bighorn

Location:	Montana
Posted:	Jan 8, 2026
Due:	Feb 11, 2026
Agency:	State Government of Montana
Type of Government:	State & Local
Category:	T - Photographic, Mapping, Printing, and Publications Services
Solicitation No:	Bighorn
Publication URL:	To access bid details, please log in.

Attachment Preview

Christopher Dorrington, Director

2701 Prospect ▪ PO Box 201001

Helena MT 59620-1001

Date:

January 8, 2026

Subject:

Request for Proposals

Bighorn River – 1M W Bighorn

NHPB 94-1(89)51

UPN 9991000

To Whom It May Concern:

The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) is accepting proposals from consulting firms

interested in the preparation of the construction plans and specifications for the subject project.

One firm will be selected to perform the work specified herein.

Teams may be established as necessary; however, it is expected that the prime consultant will be

capable of completing the vast majority of the work, and the proposal must clearly identify the

prime for this contract. As a rule, the prime consultant must complete at least 50% of the work

for a specific project or assignment unless written exception is given.

Montana professional engineering licensure is required for this work and must be in-hand at the

time your proposal is submitted. If this requirement is not met and clearly identified in the

proposal, your proposal will be considered non-responsive.

If your firm is interested, please submit a proposal as described herein.

Consultant Design Bureau

Phone: (406) 444–6209

Fax: (406) 444–6253

An Equal Opportunity Employer

Engineering Division

TTY: (800) 335–7592

Web Page: www.mdt.mt.gov

SCOPE OF WORK

MDT is in the process of selecting the appropriate project delivery method for final design and

construction. If Design–Build is not deemed suitable for this project, MDT may elect to proceed

using the Design–Bid–Build method. In that case, the selected consultant may be retained to

perform the final design of the project.

This agreement covers services for the initial design only for the Bighorn River – 1M W Bighorn

project, which will include all work necessary through approval of the Scope of Work (SOW)

report. If Design–Build is determined to be the appropriate delivery method, the selected

consultant will be precluded from participating as part of any Design–Build team proposing for

the Phase 2 effort.

The project will replace/rehabilitate a pair of existing structures on I-94. The first of these

facilities is an Eastbound Structure (ID 01920) and the other being a Westbound Structure (ID

01921), both are in fair condition. The Eastbound structure is narrow and scour susceptible

causing replacement to be the appropriate scope. The Westbound structure will be rehabilitated.

The project will potentially include (but is not limited to) roadway design; traffic engineering,

operations analysis and design; geotechnical investigation, analysis, and design; survey (control

survey, mapping and engineering survey); environmental evaluation and permitting; bridge

design; hydraulics analysis and design; local agency and other stakeholder coordination.

By submitting a proposal, it is understood your firm has capacity to complete the work requested

including having an internal quality assurance/quality control process achieving industry

standard expectations for quality.

LOCATION

This project includes work on the Eastbound and Westbound I-94 Structures 01921 and 01920

over the Bighorn River near Custer. The project spans from RP 51.0 to RP 53.0.

PROJECT SCHEDULE AND DELIVERABLES

The project schedule will be developed and negotiated prior to executing the contract agreement.

At this time, it is anticipated that deliverables will generally follow those described in MDT’s

Consultant Activity Descriptions (as applicable):

http://www.mdt.mt.gov/other/webdata/external/cdb/ACTIVITY_DESCRIPTIONS/CONSULTA

NT_DESIGN_2500_MU.PDF

STANDARDS, SPECIFICATIONS, AND POLICIES

Work is expected to follow MDT’s various Manuals, Guides, and Policies. These items may be

found on MDT’s Design Consulting web page at: http://www.mdt.mt.gov/business/consulting/.

PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL

Submit one (1) electronic version (Adobe© PDF format) of the proposal. Hard copy

proposals will not be accepted.

Page 2 of 7

Submit the electronic version by uploading to the State of Montana File Transfer Service (FTS)

site, which can be accessed at this link: https://transfer.mt.gov. To upload to FTS, an account

must be created unless the person who is uploading already has an account. Uploading

instructions can be accessed at https://transfer.mt.gov/Home/Instructions. When your proposal

has been uploaded, the FTS system will prompt you for an email address to send to. Please send

this email of your uploaded proposal to the following individuals:

Sheryl Tangen: stangen@mt.gov

Kelly Williams: kwilliams@mt.gov

Eric Parrish: eparrish@mt.gov

The Department must receive the proposals for this RFP no later than 3:00 PM MST,

February 11, 2026.

Regardless of cause, late proposals will not be accepted and will automatically be disqualified

from further consideration. It shall be solely the vendor's responsibility to assure delivery at the

specified office by the specified time. Offeror may request the State return late proposals at

vendor’s expense or the State will dispose of late proposals if requested by the offeror. (See

Administrative Rules of Montana (ARM) 2.5.509.). If no request is made, late proposals become

the property of the Department. All proposals submitted on time become the property of the

Department.

The costs for developing and delivering responses to this solicitation are entirely the

responsibility of the offeror. The State is not liable for any expense incurred by the offeror in the

preparation and presentation of this submittal.

TENTATIVE RFP/SELECTION SCHEDULE

The anticipated schedule for consultant solicitation and selection for this contract is as follows

(subject to change):

January 8, 2026: RFP released

February 11, 2026: Proposals due to be submitted to MDT Consultant Design

March 2, 2026:

Proposals reviewed, rated, and ranked by the evaluation committee

March 4, 2026:

Consultant Selection Board meeting to select consultant

April 1, 2026:

Scoping meeting with selected consultant

There are three (3) members on the evaluation committee for this RFP (subject to change):

1. MDT Billings District Projects Engineer

2. MDT Consultant Design Project Manager

3. MDT Functional Manager

PROPOSAL CONTENTS

The proposal must contain the information listed in this section. The proposal is limited to five

(5) pages, not including the required Appendices. A single cover jacket/title page is allowed if

desired and will not count in the page limit. Each page is defined as one side of a letter size sheet

(no larger than 8 ½” x 11”), minimum font size of 10. Evaluation of information will begin with

the first page immediately following the cover jacket/title page, and every page will be counted,

in order, from that point forward, including any table of contents or divider pages the firm wishes

Page 3 of 7

to include. Once the page limit is reached, any information included thereafter will be removed

and not considered or scored. Please organize your proposal in the same order and numbering

format as shown below, which will assist MDT in reviewing your proposal:

Questions

1) Team Qualifications

Provide a discussion on how the team you propose to use for this project (including

subconsultants, if used) is best qualified to respond to the requirements of this project.

Discussion should focus on the requirements for this specific project, particularly your

team’s expertise and experience, as it relates to the work described in the “Scope of

Work” section above. Provide examples of previous related project experience as it

relates to these services. Identify professional licensure of staff that satisfy the

requirements for this contract. Include an organizational chart of your team for this

project. Also briefly discuss your compatibility of systems, software, and equipment (i.e.

CADD software, word processing software, etc.), and experience with these systems,

software, and equipment. The Department’s standard design software is Autodesk®

technology included in the Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) Collection.

Describe any special equipment or software you intend to use. Resumes may be

considered as supplemental information for scoring this question.

2) Project Approach

Transportation work has many challenging aspects, and the development and delivery of

a successful project that addresses and mitigates specific project challenges is of utmost

interest to MDT. Discuss the challenges you foresee as they relate to this project and its

requirements, your strategy for addressing these challenges, and your specific experience

in implementing the strategies identified. Describe your quality assurance/quality control

process. Include a discussion on your ability to successfully deliver this project, and your

overall plan for delivering this project in a timely manner.

Appendix A: Resumes

Include brief resumes for the key personnel to be assigned to the contract. Resumes are

limited to one (1) page per person.

Appendix B: Cover Page Form

Include a completed version of MDT’s standard cover page form, available at the following

location:

http://www.mdt.mt.gov/other/webdata/external/cdb/MDT-CDB-002-Proposal-SOQ-Cover-Sheet.pdf

Information presented in the cover page form will not be considered in proposal scoring.

Appendix C: References

Submit references that includes a minimum of five (5) separate contracts from the past

three (3) years. If applicable, you may submit multiple contracts for a single client. Each

contract must pertain to work similar to the proposed scope of services. Include client

name, a currently employed primary contact person, an alternative contact person,

corresponding valid phone numbers and emails for both contacts, a range of contract value,

and a brief description of the work performed. If MDT needs to use these references for the

Past Performance Score (as described in the “Evaluation of Proposals” section below) and

Page 4 of 7

is unable to contact the required number of references after a reasonable effort, the firm

will receive a zero for the missing reference(s).

EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS

All proposals will be evaluated in accordance with the following factors:

1) Team Qualifications (50 points possible)

2) Project Approach (100 points possible)

3) Record of past performance (30 points possible)

a) If two (2) or more MDT evaluations specific to the discipline for this contract are

available for the consultant, the average score of these evaluations will be used.

Evaluations for Project Management & Overall Performance will also be included.

b) If fewer than two (2) MDT evaluations specific to the discipline for this contract are

available for the consultant, but there are two (2) or more MDT evaluations are

available for other work disciplines, the consultant’s current overall past performance

score from MDT evaluations will be used.

c) If there is only one (1) MDT evaluation available for the consultant, the record of past

performance score will be an average of the MDT evaluation and one (1) reference

check from the references provided in the unbound attachment.

d) If no MDT evaluations are available, the average score of two (2) reference checks

from the references provided in the unbound attachment will be used for this score.

Regardless of partnership/teaming relationships, the past performance of the prime

consultant will be the past performance scored that will be used for this score.

All Proposals will be evaluated using the following basic scoring methodology:

o Outstanding/Exceptional response: 90-100% of the available points

o Good response: 70-90% of the available points

o Average response: 50-70% of the available points

o Poor response: 30-50% of the available points

o Qualifications not clearly met: 0-30% of the available points

Following the review, evaluation, and rating of all proposals, the final results will be presented to

the Consultant Selection Board (Board) at the MDT Headquarters Building. At this time, the

Board will select the most qualified firm(s) to perform the work. The Board may consider any

proposal scoring within 2% of the highest-scoring proposal as equally qualified and take into

account its knowledge of the firms’ workload, past performance, and familiarity with the project

area and local entities in selecting the most-qualified consultant. In the event that a firm cannot

be identified as the most qualified through an evaluation of these proposals, MDT reserves the

right to narrow down the list of responding firms to an appropriate short list. Short-listed firms

will either be asked to provide a supplemental proposal or asked to be interviewed or provide a

presentation. Scores from the proposals, supplement project proposals (if used), and interviews

(if used) will be carried forward to determine final consultant score. Consultant selection is

finalized by MDT at the Consultant Selection Board meeting.

Page 5 of 7

This is the opportunity summary page. It provides an overview of this opportunity and a preview of the attached documentation.

Title	Closes
Bighorn River – 1M W Bighorn	02/11/2026

Bighorn River – 1M W Bighorn

Attachment Preview

See also