Talking about pavement tonight at the City Council Mtg.

Pavement Condition Index (PCI)  

Report to be studied at tonight's City Council Session.

When politicians brush off heavy infrastructure spending in favor of investing in visions of a better future, or compromising their way to a middling patchwork of fixes, a slide from a good to a poor PCI is inevitable.  

Many roads are "basically beyond salvage."

• In order to bring the entire roadway system in the optimal PCI range of low to mid 80’s, the pavement rehabilitation program would need to spend $80 million over the next five years. The reason for this high cost is that many of our streets have deteriorated to the point that full reconstruction is necessary, at a high unit cost.
  
• At the current investment rate (as planned in the Capital Improvement Plan), the PCI is expected to go down. 
  

• A new set of scenarios was run to consider how to bring each individual functional classification (i.e. arterial, collector, residential) up to a PCI of 70. This approach would focus on spending more money on residential and collectors over the next five years. It would require a higher investment rate than is currently planned for in our CIP, but one that is potentially doable, especially if the county gas tax ballot measure passes. Reaching a 70 PCI goal will still leave many streets in a poor or very poor condition (we’ll have color-coded maps at the study session). But there is less urgency for them, since they are basically beyond salvage.
  
  ATTACHMENTS
  1. Pavement Management & Budget Options Report – Capitol Assets – Draft, September 2016 
  

Several Mayoral and City Council candidates will be hearing the newest report on the PCI tonight.  Let's see if they will be true to their campaign promises to value our infrastructure!  (Or maybe it was a bicycle path they were talking about.).  What needs to give in the budget to allow our expensive road system to survive?