The city is taking an inventory of the condition of each road it maintains this summer.

In July, City Commissioners awarded a $249,810 contract to Roadway Asset Services, of Texas, for the project.

RAS is surveying pavement conditions of all city-maintained streets, curbs, gutters and ADA ramps, plus the River’s Edge Trail.

The city street division maintains about 393 miles of streets and alleys within the city limits, according to the city.

The project is scheduled for completion in September.

The company is conducting a field study, reviewing and analyzing data, and inputting data into Cartegraph, the city’s asset management system.

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The public works engineering division is overseeing the project, which was added to the public works capital improvement program last year. The project will produce a complete inventory of the city’s streets and the River’s Edge Trail system, their overall condition and recommended maintenance plan, allowing staff to forecast budgets and prioritize maintenance and repair requests.

The project is being funded primarily through federal highway grant funding, with the remainder through the city’s streets assessment, according to Chris Gaub, city public works director.

“The data will more accurately define future investment levels required to maintain this infrastructure and assist with building outcome-based scenarios to prioritize investment in a resource constrained environment,” according to the staff project summary.

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RAS is using vans with digital cameras to collect imagery on all pavement and above ground transportation-related asses within the right of way.

The vans will be traveling all city-maintained roads during daylight hours, according to the city.

The city already tracks street conditions and the RAS inventory will augment and update that data “and give us a blueprint to repeat this work in the future,” Gaub told The Electric. “This is not an annual process, but we are looking at adding this to a routine schedule in the future, possibly validating the data every few years.”

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Once RAS has finished collecting data and imported it into the city’s Cartegraph system, Gaub said staff will present the information to commissioner and work on setting a defined level of service.

“With a defined level of service, budgets can be aligned to address street network needs. However, some perspective that is important today is that costs have risen exponentially over the last few years due to inflation and supply chain issues, over which the city has no control. Also, the city’s street network has increased 28 percent in the last 50 years, while the city population has only increased approximately 5 percent. All of these factors mean funding levels via street assessments are not keeping up with funding requirements to maintain the citizens’ streets,” Gaub told The Electric on Aug. 23.

During their Aug. 20 meeting, commissioners approved a 10 percent increase to the street assessment, which equates to about $12.11 for the average-sized residential lot.

The estimated total assessment for the district is $5,545,751.

For an average-sized residential lot of 7,500 square feet, the estimated assessment factor is $0.017759 per square foot, or about $133.20 for the year.

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City staff told commissioners during the budget process that if the assessment wasn’t increased, “there would be a significant reduction in services for street maintenance.”

Commissioners also increased the street assessment 10 percent last year.

In October 2023, city streets division staff gave their annual report to City Commissioners.

During that meeting, Eric Boyd, division manager, said staff was making informed decisions rather than flying by the seat of their pants.

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Boyd said the division uses the overall condition index ratings of city streets. The OCI is the overall condition of the street that 20 criteria, including pavement condition, how the street rides, safety, ADA, geometric, drainage and more.

He told commissioners in October that they have a map of road conditions and they also track work orders, citizen requests and develop maintenance plans to see where they need to make improvements. Their system generates reports to see predict future conditions and plan for future needs.

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The OCI allows the division to make informed decisions on prioritizing maintenance and improvements, Boyd said.

“We like to use facts,” Boyd said. “It allows us to remove emotion” and make the best decisions.

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He told commissioners in October that streets aren’t typically important to the average citizen until they have a problem, such as a pothole.

In April 2024, City Manager Greg Doyon said the streets division was down to about 60 percent, a low level that could impact normal mill and overlay road work, as well as responding to pothole complaints.

Gaub told The Electric on Aug. 23 that paving and pothole repair is proceeding as planned with their current staffing levels.

Gaub said the streets division has repaired more than 1,100 potholes so far in 2024.

“Potholes are an issue every municipality is challenged with. Employee recruitment has been a significant challenge, as it is currently for almost every sector of our economy,” Gaub said.

The city is currently hiring for multiple streets division positions.

Most of the city’s streets are in fair condition, Boyd said in October, with many needing mill and overlay.

The city is trying to get 72 years of pavement life out of the average street, Boyd told commissioners in October.

Boyd said that the city has 2,313 miles of street in the fair condition needing resurfacing, which would take about 46 years to accomplish at current resurfacing rates.

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The further a street condition degrades, the cost of maintenance goes up, he said in October.

They also consider citizen requests for services, routine inspections, age and condition of utilities under streets and other factors, in determining which streets need attention, Boyd told commissioners in October. He said they don’t want to reconstruct a street that sits over 100-year-old water mains that will be replaced in a few years.

Gaub told The Electric on Aug. 23 that the streets division received 777 requests for service during the budget year that ended June 30 and so far this budget year, which began July 1, they’d received 176 requests for service.