WORKSHOP ITEM Jon Haukaas, Director of Public Works
Title
CITY OF BLAINE PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
Background
Purpose and Need
The City of Blaine’s street infrastructure is critical to the operation of the City. The replacement cost of Blaine’s nearly 260 centerline miles of roadway pavement is estimated at more than $475 million. Over the years, traffic, weather, water, and aging of asphalt and concrete all contribute to street deterioration. An underfunded Pavement Management Program results in deteriorated roadways and a backlog of preservation and maintenance projects.
Creation of a City of Blaine Pavement Asset Management Plan will proactively combat street deterioration in the short-term, and improves the integrity and service life of Blaine streets over the long term. The plan is grounded in the principles that preventative and rehabilitative street maintenance is more cost-effective than reconstruction. The concept of preventive maintenance is the application of the right treatment on the right road at the right time to save or delay future expenditures. The basis for the pavement management plan will be to develop a set of goals/target level of service for the road system and then create an action plan to achieve those levels. The plan will focus on prevention of deterioration once a road has been repaired to good or excellent condition.
Historically, street repair work focused on patching and crack sealing done by city maintenance staff as time and resources allowed from approximately April through October. A sealcoat program, asphalt mill and overlay, or full depth pavement rehabilitation was used for streets as funding allowed. Typically resources were low enough that very few streets were able to be maintained each year and many times a worst first selection method was used, which meant that good pavements were allowed to deteriorate past points of the inexpensive repair options.
Inventory and Condition Assessment
The City Council approved a contract with Braun Intertec on August 16, 2018 through a bid solicitation process to perform a survey of pavement conditions and develop recommendations for future improvement methods.
The City was divided into three general zones:
|
Table 1: Survey |
Zone |
Total |
Approx. % |
Zone Description |
|
Zones Survey Year |
|
Surveyed |
|
|
|
|
|
Mileage |
|
|
|
2018 |
1 |
103.5 |
40% |
Between University Avenue |
|
|
|
|
|
(CSAH 51) and TH 65 |
|
2019 |
2 |
69.0 |
26% |
Between TH 65 and Radisson |
|
|
|
|
|
Road (CSAH 52) |
|
2019 |
3 |
87.4 |
34% |
Between Radisson Rd (CSAH 52) |
|
|
|
|
|
and Sunset Avenue (CSAH 53) |
|
Total |
259.9 |
The project entailed having a trained engineer review every street segment throughout the city and record a Pavement Condition Index score based on a set of rating principles. This ASTM survey process is a highly standardized, objective and repeatable rating methodology that ensures subsequent surveys are performed using the same evaluation criteria. A consistent process allows for equal comparison in subsequent surveys to develop life cycle/degradation curves. Total aggregated scores give us a descriptive rating.
Street segment information was developed in coordination with our GIS staff and loaded onto a handheld tablet with GPS capabilities. The field evaluator collected pertinent inventory information, distress types and severity, location data, and extensiveness of problem areas.
The collected data was compiled and summarized for each segment to calculate the PCI score. Overall the City has a high percentage of streets that rate very well.
|
Condition |
Total Length |
Percent of Total |
|
Category (PCI) |
(miles) |
Length |
|
0-10 (Failed) |
0.7 |
0% |
|
11-25 (Very Poor) |
5.1 |
2% |
|
26-40 (Poor) |
20.4 |
8% |
|
41-55 (Fair) |
21.1 |
8% |
|
56-70 (Good) |
42.7 |
16% |
|
71-85 (Very Good) |
70.9 |
27% |
|
86-100 (Excellent) |
98.9 |
38% |
|
Total |
259.9 |
100% |
Using the Data for Life Cycle Curves and Estimated Costs
An estimate of total cost to bring all streets to ‘Excellent’ condition is estimated at over $83M and provides us with an understanding of how spending on various levels impacts our budget. It is not practical or feasible to do all that work at one time.
We can predict how quickly streets get worse using very general degradation curves (see attachment). This directly impacts our future planning. Repeating the condition assessment every two-four years will provide more specific degradation rates and better allocate resources.
When pavements are in good condition or better (above 70), preventive repairs such as crack sealing and seal coating should be performed. Preventive repairs are generally low in cost ($5-50/lf) and help keep good pavements in good serviceable condition. They extend pavement life by sealing open cracks, preventing water and debris from entering the pavement structure and adversely affecting pavement life, and sealing high in-place voids, which may cause raveling and premature potholes.
Street segments with a PCI between 26 and 70 are representative of needing major repairs, such as mill-and-overlay or reclamation. Major repairs are more costly than preventive repairs, but provide a much longer added life. These types of repairs restore the pavement surface and provide structural benefit. In the case of reclamation, existing crack patterns are eliminated, whereas reflective cracking will occur with a mill-and-overlay approach.
The most costly repairs ($250-$400/lf) include complete reconstruction when PCIs are below 25. The first years of the plan will focus on these streets considered in the lowest ‘very poor’ or ‘failed’ PCI ratings.
Longer term we will quickly move to placing a higher focus on keeping better streets at above a ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ rating with lesser surface treatments and minimizing the expensive repairs.
Development of a Capital Improvement Plan
Staff is using the final report and segment data to develop a long term Capital Improvement Plan. Our goal would be to maintain an average PCI above 70 and less than 5% of our streets below a PCI of 40. This directly addresses citizen concerns and minimizes our long term pavement rehabilitation expenses.
The street segments throughout the city were grouped into 166 neighborhood construction zones to facilitate constructability and efficiency. Each grouping ranges from 1.5 to 3 miles of streets to also help with scalability of each annual program. This allows the city to select 2-5 areas annually that still fits within our available budgets. These neighborhood areas were then ranked based on a composite PCI score.
The attached exhibit shows the proposed DRAFT 2021-2025 Pavement Management Capital Improvement Program.
Staff is recommending a program in 2021 that will improve 8.9 miles of streets at an estimated cost of $8.5M. This is lower than 2019 or 2020 yet still addressing our worst ‘very poor’ or ‘failed’ streets. The program would include the following areas/segments:
• Club West Parkway - 109th to Cloud Dr: Pavement reclamation or M&O
• 99th Ave - TH65 to University Ave: Pavement reclamation or M&O
• Areas near Polk St/91st Ave: Neighborhood Reconstruction
• Areas near Eldorado St/ 132nd: Neighborhood Reconstruction
• Flanders Ct/101st - south of Radisson Rd: Pavement reclamation or M&O
• 105th Ave - National St to Sunset St: Neighborhood Reconstruction
• Airport Road north of US10: Pavement reclamation or M&O
The 2022-2025 Program will then be able to begin working on a mix of neighborhood reconstruction projects and beginning to move to the lesser preventative maintenance programs.
Recommendation
Provide feedback on the Pavement Management Strategies and future improvement planning.