Road Rehab Program

Location

City-wide

City or County Responsible for Project

City of Santa Clarita

Category

Roads: Efficient and Sustainable Road Maintenance, Construction and Reconstruction Projects.

Author

Damon Letz

Organization

City of Santa Clarita – Public Works

Address

23920 Valencia Boulevard Suite 304, Santa Clarita, CA 91355

Phone

661-255-4982

Project Description

Every city has roads to maintain, but not many cities are expanding as fast as the City of Santa Clarita. When first incorporated in 1987, the City was 39 square miles. Today, the City spans over 70 square miles and home to 222,000+ residents. There are over 542 miles of major and minor streets the City of Santa Clarita is responsible for maintaining. The City of Santa Clarita realized they were holding the City’s overall average Pavement Condition Index (PCI) at a constant unsatisfactory number. The numerical index which rates street conditions between 0 (failed road) and 100 (excellent road) had been at a constant range between 65-66. In 2014, the City saw the PCI drop to 63, a sign they were losing the battle against deteriorating asphalt pavement. The decision was made to invest more and try new approaches for pavement preservation. Utilizing the City’s pavement management system revealed that selecting streets by tracking pavement conditions and waiting for the optimal times to apply a preventative treatment would preserve and maintain the pavement better and increase performance life. The old approach of waiting until a pavement was ready for an overlay was not helping to address the declining City-wide PCI, so the City created a repeatable street selection and prioritization tool that identifies potential candidate streets. The Public Works team also strategically selects treatments that work best for Santa Clarita’s desert climate. This year the treatments have been expanded to include recycled materials. Recycling old asphalt and tires into new products has proven to be cost effective. The third approach to improve street conditions in a cost-effective way was by benefiting from an “economies of scale” by grouping streets and projects together instead of tackling them individually. By having more produced on a larger scale at one time, the overall costs for each individual street resurfacing project lowers. By shifting the City’s Road Rehab to a road preservation approach, and incorporating new innovative and cost-effective techniques, the Public Works Department was able to increase the amount of pavement maintained from five million square feet to nearly eight million square feet – for the same cost as previous years! In 2017, the City’s PCI went up to 68 percent! This is no small feat, and is bringing the City closer to the “Good” PCI Category. As a point of reference, the State of California’s PCI average as of October 2018 is 65, while the City of Los Angeles’ PCI average is 63. It is also reported that 53 of the 58 counties in California are either at risk or have poor pavements. These reports further prove that Santa Clarita is paving the way in road preservation! And conditions are improving; the projected PCI for this year’s project is 69!