A report on pavement condition in Sacramento County was presented today to the Sacramento Transportation Authority (SacTA): 2023 Regional Pavement Analysis, written by consultant NCE, agenda item 12.

The report has two main sections:

• What are the existing pavement conditions, countywide, and by each agency (city or county).
• What are funding scenarios and how would the allow, or not allow, substandard conditions to be improved.

Existing conditions are summarized in the chart below. The countywide PCI (pavement condition index) is 53, out of a possible 100, with a target of at least 70 for ‘good condition’. Only Elk Grove has the target 70 or better, in large part because their roadways are newer than most of the county.

The second section presents five possible funding scenarios, and how pavement condition would vary over time. In each of the scenarios except the first, ‘improve PCI to 70’, pavement condition declines, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. SacTA already recognized that there is no likely funding source that would allow scenario one. Scenario four includes new sales tax income, but still does not keep pavement conditions from declining.

Many people question where SB 1 Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 funding (mostly gas tax) is going and why it hasn’t fixed our roads. SB 1’s main intent was to allow Caltrans to maintain freeways and other state-owned roads. It had only minor funding, a fraction of what would be needed, to maintain local roadways.

Why are we in this crisis of pavement condition? Because we have built roadways (and bridges and freeways) that we will never be able to maintain. It would take a tax rate many times higher than it is today to actually maintain all we have. That isn’t happening. We’ve built ourselves into a corner. But that doesn’t mean we can’t address the problem. We can shift funding from road building to road repair. This is called ‘fix my pothole’ or ‘fix-it-first’ or ‘state of good repair’.

I made these comments today about the issue:

• I’m a active transportation and transit advocate, but what everyone in the county wants is to have good streets.
• Under no reasonable funding scenario does pavement quality improve
• There will be less money coming through the state, as demonstrated by the LAO presentation (the previous agenda item, 11)
• $8.3B roadway ‘asset’ is really a $8.3B ‘liability’, requiring a significant investment to maintain
• Every new pavement mile is an additional liability
• Authority funding should shift from creating new pavement to maintaining and rehabilitating existing pavement
• This shift is even more important for the member agencies, cities and county
• Each potential infrastructure project should be evaluated on the question “Does this project add enough economic activity to pay for maintenance?” If the answer is not, they should not be built.
• If the authority is going to voters for increased sales tax in the future, it will be necessary ahead of time to show that the authority and agencies are already working to solve this issue, not just waiting for more money

Two bicycle advocates spoke after me, pointing out that safety for bicyclists is actually a very high priority. I agree, even above economic productivity. But economic productivity must be considered. I roadway projects don’t create enough income to pay for them, and maintenance and rehabilitation of them, we are sliding further down the slope of pavement deterioration.

Board comments were mostly in recognition that we must invest differently than in the past, we must keep our existing roads in better condition, and that includes consideration not doing projects which increase future liability.