The ad-hoc Citizens Advisory Streets Committee (CASC) reported to the Town Council on June 20, a situation very similar to pavement evaluations past. The biggest obstacle to making progress on a pavement management program is funding. The existing annual allotment of approximately $2.5 million is not adequate to do much more than basic maintenance on the town’s 166 lane-miles, or 3.5 million square yards of asphalt pavement. This creates a community asset with a value of more than $214 million.

Based on a detailed, high-tech evaluation by Roadway Asset Services (RAS) the CASC is estimating it would cost nearly $60 million to upgrade the Town’s street pavement to reach the point where the $2.5 million annual funding is adequate. The committee offered options and a recommendation (voter approved bond) but that is a decision the council will need to arrive at with further discussion.

The Town has $10 million of the total estimate already on hand and is ready to begin work on some street construction projects. Over the next two years $5 million annually will be allocated to street rejuvenation projects. The $10 million is funding the Town received from the federal American Rescue Plan from the COVID pandemic.

The council in fact addressed the first $5 million project at the June 20 session by unanimously approving a contract with M.R. Tanner Development and Construction. This was done through a cooperative purchase agreement with the contractor’s agreement with the City of Chandler.

The proposed pavement work plan for FY 24 includes Ibsen Drive, Sterling Way, Sherwood Drive, Ashbrook Drive, Panorama Drive, Kiwanis Drive, Enterprise Drive, Colony Drive, Jacklin Drive and Firebrick Drive.

These are all pre-incorporation roadways with most needing complete reconstruction. Preliminary work with concrete curb repair and drainage channels has already been done in these areas.

Committee work

The CASC included about a dozen volunteer members working for 20 months preparing the plan presented to the council. The group has extensive experience in civil and municipal engineering, transportation, roadway construction, public sector infrastructure repair/replacement and business management.

Mark Graham, who was spokesperson for the group, said the committee was acting as citizens only, with no bias except to find a solution for failing street problems.

“Our work is not just for council and staff, but for the entire community,” Graham said.

Street maintenance has been underfunded for years, Graham said. This is no fault of the council members over the years, nor staff – there simply was not enough revenue generated.

There were lower standards in place at the time when many of the early Fountain Hills streets were built resulting in lower quality construction.

Graham noted that new pavement begins to deteriorate as soon as it is put in place, and as time progresses the asphalt will deteriorate at a faster rate.

The RAS evaluation conducted in Fountain Hills indicates an average pavement condition index (PCI) for the overall system of 69, which is quite good. That is skewed somewhat however by the fact that 51% of the pavement is rated very good to excellent (PCI of 71-100). However, major arterials such as Shea and Saguaro boulevards as well as many downtown streets have been repaved recently enough that they comprise a high amount of asphalt that is in excellent shape.

About 30% of the streets fall into the area from very poor to just fair condition (PCI 0-60). Eighteen percent of the streets rate good condition.

Many of the streets in poor condition are pre-incorporation construction in older neighborhoods impacting a lot of citizens. The RAS report indicates the backlog of streets, those in need of immediate attention, is 15% with all but 1% in the pre-incorporation category. Ideally the backlog should be below 10% according to RAS. It was also pointed out that once the streets fall into the fair and below PCI measure, they deteriorate more quickly, and the backlog increases rapidly.

CASC is recommending a five-year “Fix it now” program that would endeavor to improve all streets in the community to an overall 70 PCI number. They have concluded that once that is achieved a pavement lifecycle program can be implemented and maintained at approximately $2.125 million annually.

The CASC report and council presentation as well as the RSA report are available online at the Town website, fountainhillsaz.gov, with the information packets from the June 20 meeting. The documents will be posted to the Street Department category soon.