Our Pavement Management Program inspects roads every two years. We collect images of our roads, and a computer analyzes how much of each road is distressed. Some types of distress include cracks, patches from utility work, ruts and depressions.
Distresses in the pavement help determine the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of each section of road. The PCI measures the condition of a road, with 0 being the worst and 100 being the best.
In addition to PCI, we also use other criteria to decide which sections of road receive treatment:
- traffic counts (known as Average Daily Traffic, or ADT)
- truck routes
- type of road (known as Functional Classification)
- access to critical places in the community, such as hospitals and health care facilities, fire stations, schools, libraries, city halls, community centers, shelters, and places of worship
- emergency transportation routes
- climate and economic justice
- presence of culverts, which can cause a road to degrade faster
- sensitive habitat
We use these factors to set priorities for road maintenance, and decide what sort of treatment to use.