The Town of Snowflake now has a pavement management program. The program inventories and rates the condition of the 49 miles of road in Snowflake town limits.
Public Works Superintendent Terry Cooper gave a power point presentation on the program, which is a set of planning tools used to aid pavement management decisions, and incorporates all aspects of an asset management program, at the April 14 council meeting.
In 2009, Snowflake had an inventory of 25 miles of streets. That number jumped to 46.5 miles in 2011 and totals 49 miles in 2015.
Cooper explained the classifications of streets, including very good, good, fair, poor and very poor. Very good is a street that is stable with no cracking, no patching and no deformation evident, while a very poor street has pavement that is in extremely deteriorated condition, numerous areas of instability and a majority of the section is showing structural deficiency.
Cooper explained that previously streets were classified by windshield inventories, which means someone drove the streets and noted the condition.
In 2009 there were 2.5 miles of very good streets. By 2011, that had gone down to 1.8 miles. There were five miles of good streets in 2009 and 11.8 miles in 2011; 3.75 miles of fair streets in 2009 and 11.8 miles in 2011; 12.5 miles of poor streets in 2009 and 23.5 miles in 2011; and 1.25 miles of very poor streets in 2009 and 2.2 miles in 2015.
The Public Works Department will be making an inventory of condition of streets.
Cooper explained the types of distress, creating a distress guide.
The GIS Specialist has built an app for smartphones that will enable them to record distress severity and frequency, and a sidewalk/curb inventory, which will be edited and exported to an Excel/GIS program.
When the inspection data has been collected it will be put into the 10 different distress types and the industry standard for appropriate treatment will be identified.
The planning portion of the pavement management program shows the surface treatment options for the condition of the streets.
The town has 68 miles of unpaved roads, with 36 miles of dedicated unpaved roads, and 10 miles of dedicated and maintained roads.
Cooper cautioned council members that when they accept roads that do not meet town standards, the town must maintain that road.
The dwindling Highway User Revenue Fund (HURF) allotment to the town has made it difficult to maintain roads. In 2005, Snowflake’s HURF fund was in excess of $700,000. In 2010, the state raided HURF funds and gave them to the Department of Public Safety. That year, Snowflake received less than $600,000. In 2012, the amount received was just over $600,000, but in 2012, it dropped to just above $550,000. In 2014 it jumped to nearly $650,000.
HURF funding sources are an 18-cent gas tax, and vehicle license and registration that in 2014 brought $1.24 billion to the state budget. Of that money, $117.6 million went to DPS and 27.5 percent of the remaining $1.12 billion was dispersed to the cities. Only two-tenths of a percent of that went to Snowflake, because the dispersion of funds is based on population, not origin of gasoline sales nor the number of miles maintained.
The 2014-15 budget will crack seal 17 miles of road for approximately $100,000. A surface treatment at the approximate cost of $400,000 will treat 12 miles in 2015-16, and five miles at an approximate cost of $200,000 in 2016-17.
It is forecast they will surface treat four miles of road each year beginning in 2018 and continuing until 2025.
The town is focusing on the high end roads, according to Cooper.
Councilman Terril Kay said he thought they should spend money on the bad roads. He noted that the maintenance forecast will put just under half the roads in good condition and under half in fair condition with a very small percentage of roads in poor condition.
“When you talk to those in the pavement management business, the cost to take a road that is in good shape and do a treatment to keep it in good shape is far less than trying to do bad roads,” explained Town Manager Paul Watson. “If we spend money on the bad roads trying to get them up to a better level, now the good roads drop off.”
Cooper explained that they will keep the good roads good and that they are holding out $100,000 to keep the poor and fair condition roads surviving, which will be done by the staff at a much lower cost.
There was a brief discussion on a road improvement district.
“I think there’s some citizens interested in it, but don’t understand how they can go about it,” said Kay, who suggested the town prepare packets on the process so it is simple to understand, and then citizens could decide what they can or cannot do.
“We will be coming to the council for a proposal for our design standards,” said Cooper.
