City Manager's Weekly Comments - City Streets

By Dale Martin

As the 2022-2023 budget process continues, a topic of significant discussion at Wednesday’s evening City Commission workshop was City streets. Street projects are a significant annual expenditure in the City budget.

In an effort to develop a long-term plan for street projects, the City hired an engineering consultant, Infrastructure Management Systems, in 2018 to complete a pavement assessment of the City’s nearly seventy miles of streets. The subsequent report would then be utilized to prepare a pavement management plan based upon collected data. The final report was presented to the City Commission in April 2019.

The report indicated that the City’s 69 miles of pavement included 824,000 square yards of pavement (predominantly asphalt). With an estimated cost of $600,000 per mile for replacement, the City’s investment in roads is approximately $44,000,000.

The streets were evaluated and rated based upon two factors: roughness and distress. When combined, the two factors generated a Pavement Condition Index (PCI), a score between 0 (poor) and 100 (excellent). Please note that the streets were evaluated in segments rather than the entirety of the road, so, for example, some segments of a street may score well while a different segment scores lower.

The report’s Executive Summary indicated that the City’s overall PCI was 72, above the national average of 60-65. The City’s roads considered Excellent (PCI > 90) also exceeded a recommended amount (28% scored; 15% recommended). Finally, the “backlog” of very poor/poor roads within the City was less than the average value (5.8% actual versus 12.0% average.) In general, the report provided objective testament to the City’s road maintenance efforts over the past several years (those efforts were led by former Streets Director Mr. Rex Lester).

At the time of the report, the City’s annual road budget was approximately $350,000. The report indicated that, given current estimates and costs at the time, if the City maintained its $350,000 annual investment for roads, the overall PCI would remain steady at 72, but the backlog would double from roughly 6% to 12%.

The report offered insight into the impact of pavement preservation:

Preservation of existing roads and street systems has become a major activity for all levels of government. Because municipalities must consistently optimize the spending of their budgets, funds that have been designated for pavements must be used as effectively as possible.

Additionally:

The role of the street network as a factor in the City’s well-being cannot be overstated. In the simplest of terms, roadways form the economic backbone of a community. They provide the means for goods to be exchanged, commerce to flourish, and commercial enterprises to generate revenue. As such, they are an investment to be maintained.

The overall condition of an agency’s infrastructure and transportation network is a key indicator of economic prosperity. Roadway networks, in general, are one of the most important and dynamic sectors in the global economy. They have a strong influence on not only the economic well-being of a community, but a strong impact on quality of life. Well-maintained road networks experience multiple socioeconomic benefits through greater labor market opportunities and decreasing income gap.

Comprehensive data illustrates that road surfaces, like nearly everything else, deteriorate over time. To efficiently maintain (and improve) a road network, the best investment is to invest in roads that are nearing the bottom of the “Good” range rather than investing significantly larger amounts in “Very Poor/Poor” roads: one dollar invested to maintain Good roads instead of eight dollars needed to repair bad roads. It is with those costs in mind that City staff works to program investments in the City’s road network.

The City is investing in additional tools to become more efficient in addressing road needs. Yes, at a quick glance, the City’s roads are in great shape, but it is critical to continue the long-term investment in this widespread and utilized community asset.

The report referenced throughout this article is available on the City website for review (Public Works page).