HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC 2025-04-22_11a Pavement Management Plan ReviewItem 11.a.
MEMORANDUM
TO: City Council
FROM: Bill Robeson, Assistant City Manager/Director of Public Works
BY: Shannon Sweeney, City Engineer
SUBJECT: Review the Plan for Pavement Management
DATE: April 22, 2025
RECOMMENDATION:
Review and provide direction on the City’s plan for pavement management.
IMPACT ON FINANCIAL AND PERSONNEL RESOURCES:
Prior to the passage of the Measure E-24 Sales Tax, approximately $1.25 million per year
of funding was available for pavement maintenance. Through efforts to support the City
Council’s decision to place Measure E-24 on the 2024 General Municipal Election, the
community ranked investments in City infrastructure, such as street repairs and sidewalk
improvements, as well as public safety, as top priorities for the use of Measure E-24
funds. Measure E-24, increases the City’s sales tax by 1%, generating approximately $6
million annually for critical City services, infrastructure improvements, and community
programs.
In response to the City Council’s establishment and prioritization of street repairs and
sidewalk improvements as one of the key goals for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2025 -27
Budget, staff developed a plan that addresses pavement maintenance for all streets
throughout the City over the next 13 years (Attachment 1). Staff recommend that this
plan be used for annual pavement management scheduling and budgeting purposes for
the 10-Year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Budget and future budgets. This funding
is projected to address pavement maintenance for nearly all public streets, excepting
Harden Street and parts of Coach Road and Branch Mill Road. Annual costs over thirteen
years are estimated at $5.0 million to $5.5 million per year, except for FY 2025-26, which
is estimated to cost 6.45 million. Carryover can be used to address the higher cost for
that fiscal period.
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Item 11.a.
City Council
Review the Plan for Pavement Management
April 22, 2025
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BACKGROUND:
On April 26, 20221, City Council approved the 2022 Pavement Management Program
Update (PMP Update). Figure 1 from that PMP Update shows the impact on the
pavement condition index (PCI, on a scale of 0 -100, with zero representing completely
deteriorated pavement and 100 representing new pavement) based on different funding
scenarios. Based on that analysis, existing funding was insufficient for the City to achieve
its goal of a Citywide average PCI of 70 or even to maintain its existing PCI of 56.
Figure 1: PMP Update PCI
This inability to adequately maintain City streets and avoid significant deferred
maintenance costs was one of the primary factors in the placement of the Measure E-24
sales tax on the ballot and its successful passage in November 2024.
Figure 2 shows the City’s historical pavement expenditure per year from FY 2018-19 to
the current year and its impact on PCI. Higher funding in the last two fiscal years was due
to the Council’s commitment to utilizing available fund balances for pavement
maintenance.
1https://pub-arroyogrande.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=fff2463d-5520-4d8a-8497-
dbca35bc3e13&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=39&Tab=attachments
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Item 11.a.
City Council
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April 22, 2025
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Figure 2: Historical Funding and PCI Impacts
ANALYSIS OF ISSUES:
The City is responsible for maintaining approximately 68 miles of pavement throughout
the City. The City has a goal of a Citywide average PCI of 70. Prior to the passage of
Measure E-24, insufficient funding was available to develop a comprehensive plan for
maintaining all City streets in a timeframe of less than 20 years or to meet its PCI goal.
However, upon passage of Measure E-24, staff began to develop a draft plan that utilizes
the projected increased funding from Measure E-24.
The City utilizes a commonly used and nationally recognized pavement management
software called Streetsaver® to manage its pavement maintenance and to develop
funding scenarios such as those shown in Figure 1. Streetsaver® is a powerful tool that
has formed the basis of the City’s pavement management since 2016. However, an in -
depth review of its data revealed some of Streetsaver®’s limitations. These limitations
include;
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The unit costs used for the calculations are conservative and assume the most
expensive treatment will be used;
PCI’s are based on surface visual inspections and may not represent the actual
structural needs of the pavement. Actual treatment needed is best determined by
deflection testing, which is expensive and whose results are only valid for two to
three years;
Streetsaver®’s algorithm degrades the PCI based on a deterioration curve
developed from data collected in California’s Bay Area, resulting in projected PCIs
that may not be 100% accurate for Arroyo Grande’s location, climate, rainfall, etc.;
StreetSaver® does not factor in the exact number of needed curb ramp
replacements when running cost scenarios and assumes more curb ramp
replacements than needed. Staff evaluated all 980 corners with existing or needed
curb ramps throughout the City. Only 315 of those corners need a new or
replacement ramp.
Despite these limitations, Streetsaver® remains the best mechanism for calculating the
City’s average PCI.
Plan Development
454 street sections are identified in the City’s Streetsaver® database. To manage that
volume of data and develop a plan that can be summarized on one sheet of paper, several
assumptions were made.
2024 Dollars
The plan assumes all costs are in 2024 dollars. It assumes that the increase in pavement
management costs each year will be the same as the increase in sales tax revenue. The
yearly increase in sales tax revenue is adjusted by the annual change in consumer price
index (CPI). Therefore, the annual cost for pavement management should be multiplied
by the CPI for budgeting in future years.
Visual PCI
Visual PCI predicts pavement treatment, but the predictive value is limited. Only deflection
testing—involving actual physical measurement of the pavement —properly identifies
appropriate treatment. Recent projects indicate that the visual PCI data in Streetsaver®
tends to be conservative and is an adequate tool for long-term pavement maintenance
planning.
Cost Efficiency
Mechanisms for developing cost-efficient projects include limiting the project to a
minimum of treatment types (reduces multiple equipment mobilizations and
subcontractors) and focusing on contiguous areas (streamlines traffic control and
stormwater management). To accomplish this, Staff groups City streets by neighborhood,
and structures similar PCI and projects so that all streets in each year are assumed to
need the same treatment. A potential cost efficiency approach that the Council directed
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staff to evaluate was working with neighboring cities to identify street repair projects in
which multiple cities could participate. The grouping of streets project s could provide an
economy of scale that would reduce costs due to the larger number and area of street s
that a contractor would address. Because the asphalt treatment types did not match for
this year’s PMP, Grover Beach’s microplaining and full-depth reclamation versus Arroyo
Grande’s overlays, the economy of scale approach did not work. Staff will contin ue to
work with neighboring agencies to identify efficiencies.
Costs
Staff has taken actions to achieve the Council’s street repairs goals at a lower cost than
what the original software-based estimates predicted through value engineering. For
example, for the most recent two years, staff have structured pavement projects to
maximize cost efficiency by limiting the types of treatments performed and by focusing
work in contiguous areas such as neighborhoods. This strategy minimizes mobilization
costs during construction and allows contractors to apply discounted pricing resulting from
larger volumes of similar work. This approach proved to be successful for the 2024 Street
Repairs Project, that had an engineer’s estimate was $4.6 million but had an actual project
cost of $4.0 million.
The 2022 PMP Update indicated that the City would need to spend an average of $6.3
million per year to maintain a PCI of 56, or an average of $8 million per year to increase
PCI by five points over ten years. The City has spent an average of $3.6 million a year
over the last four years and has achieved a current PCI of 57, up from a low of 53 in 2024
(Figure 2). This indicates that the City can maintain its current PCI for less than the $6.3
million per year originally estimated.
FY 2025-26 Budget
Attachment 1 shows a FY 2025-26 cost of $6,450,985. Recommended funding is as
follows:
Table 1: Recommended FY 2025-26 Funding
Fund Amount
Pavement Management (E-24) $3,577,640
Halcyon Complete Streets $1,875,000
CDBG $80,866
SB1 $481,000
Carryover $440,000
Total $6,454,506
Sidewalk Improvements
Sidewalk improvement is another identified infrastructure priority. Curb ramp installation
and replacement as required by law are included in pavement maintenance; however,
other sidewalk installations and repairs are a separate project. Staff are currently
identifying and geographically noting the location of sidewalk issues. Staff will recommend
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a placeholder of $500,000 annually for the 10-Year CIP Budget to address sidewalk
repairs such as sidewalk gaps and displacements, and will fine tune this figure once this
assessment is completed and a plan is developed.
NEXT STEPS:
If this plan is acceptable, City staff will take the following next steps:
Present the 10-Year CIP Budget to the City Council on May 13, 2025
Schedule deflection testing for the streets recommended for maintenance in the
upcoming budget;
Begin design on recommended maintenance for the upcoming year based on the
results of deflection testing;
Schedule for a third-party update to the City’s Pavement Management Plan in F Y
2026-27, to reevaluate pavement deterioration and realign curb ramp costs so that
Streetsaver® provides results that are more in line with City conditions; and
Complete sidewalk assessment.
ALTERNATIVES:
The following alternatives are provided for the Council’s consideration:
1. Review and provide direction on the City’s plan for pavement management;
2. Do not support staff’s plan for pavement management; or
3. Provide other direction to staff.
ADVANTAGES:
Implementing this plan for pavement management provides a mechanism for increasing
the City’s ability to achieve the goal of a PCI of 70 and provides a plan for pavement
maintenance for all streets throughout the City in the next 13 years.
DISADVANTAGES:
Because this plan addresses a 13-year timeframe, it makes assumptions about pavement
conditions that may not fully reflect the maintenance needed. Only deflection testing truly
identifies appropriate treatment and therefore cost. However, deflection testing is
expensive and only relevant for two to three years and should be utilized only for those
sections of pavement slated for near-term maintenance. Therefore, visual PCI continues
to be the best tool for long-term planning. To date, visual PCI has been conservative,
resulting in less maintenance cost than expected, so this plan is expected to be
achievable.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW:
The project is categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
pursuant to CEQA Guideline Section 15301 covering the repair and maintenance of
existing streets, sidewalks, gutters, and similar facilities.
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April 22, 2025
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PUBLIC NOTIFICATION AND COMMENTS:
The Agenda was posted at City Hall and on the City’s website in accordance with
Government Code Section 54954.2.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. 13-year Plan for Pavement Management
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ATTACHMENT 1
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