Having a new town manager will renew our opportunities
for making improvements in our maintenance and repair programs. As we move
forward with this new partnership, it will become increasingly important to
keep the residents of our town updated on our progress of stretching our
dollars to meet the highest priority needs of our resources.
Our current strategic planning document listed our
resource value at $1,000,000,000. Based on the accepted recommendation to set
aside 2% to 4% of the value of our resource annually for the maintenance and repair,
we should be setting aside $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 each year.
We have a multi-million
dollar Department of Public Work’s annual budget, but to the greatest extent
these funds are used for the completion of routine and minor maintenance. We
annually set aside $1,000,000 in our Capital Improvement program which is
solely dedicated towards capital maintenance and repair activities. Although this is a lot of money, $1,000,000
only equals 5% of the minimum we should be spending each year on maintenance
and repair, or 1/10th of 1% of the total value of our resource
instead of a minimum of 2%.
Annually we also receive Chapter 90
funds from the state to assist us in maintaining our roadways. Although we receive
approximately $450,000 a year from this fund, we should be spending
approximately $500,000 a year on routine maintenance on our roadway system. It
is evident that our state allocation doesn’t even fully fund our routine
maintenance program and does nothing for our deferred maintenance backlog of
roadway projects.
In 2009, the town purchased a computerized
pavement management system which was installed and made operational by the
Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. This
program tracks the condition of our roadways and provides data for making
roadway improvements. When the system was installed, it showed that we had an
estimated backlog of roadway work totaling approximately $12,200,000. The
report further stated unless we significantly increased our allocations for
roadway maintenance the backlog would continue to increase. The report
indicated that by the year 2014 our backlog would be $27,000,000. Since 2009, we have done very little to alter
the outcome of this study. Unfortunately, delaying roadway repairs will
exponentially increase the cost of repairs when completed.
In Longmeadow we have approximately 100
miles of roadways. Some of these roadways such as Longmeadow Street, Bliss
Road, and Converse Street receive more average daily traffic (ADT) than a
typical residential street. As a result of this traffic, these roadways will
require significantly more maintenance than a residential road.
Generally speaking all roads deteriorate
over time from basic weathering and this process will speed up depending on use
and other factors. If left unattended, a new road will gradually degrade to a road
that requires reconstruction.
Common
Terms for Asphalt Maintenance
Routine
Maintenance – Routine maintenance items are those
activities designed to address or correct specific pavement failures or
distress. Routine maintenance typically addresses localized pavement defects
and includes such activities as patching, crack sealing, infra-red heat
treatment and other techniques to repair a specific problem area.
Preventative Maintenance – Preventative mainenance tasks are planned activities performed at
regular intervals which are designed to protect and seal the pavement. The seal
will provide a number of benefits including extending the life of the wearing
surface, preventing the intrusion of air and moisture that can break down the
pavement surface and filling small cracks and voids in the surface to prevent
them increasing in size. Preventative maintenance activities are cheaper per
foot of road than reconstruction or rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation – Rehabilitation
denotes that a roadway requires extensive overhaul to bring its conditon up to
an acceeptable level and provide significant additional life. Rehabilitation can
involve a number of activities including the following:
·
Parital depth patching
·
Full depth patching
·
Joint and crack sealing
·
Grouting and
under-sealing (filling voids)
·
Grinding and milling
the pavement to remove high spots and prepare for new layers
·
Overlays
Reconstruction –
Reconstruction is considered the complete removal and reconstruction of a road
or segment. The road is beyond repair and needs to be completely rebuilt.
Included in reconstruction projects would be items such as widening,
realignment, traffic control devices,and major base and drainage work.
The attached chart demonstrates the
effects of delays in performing roadway maintenance.
Dollar
amounts required for repairs were taken from the study completed in 2009 by the
Pioneer Valley Planning Commission.
Chart source U.S. Department of Transportation
(FHWA)
Let us assume that 40% of our streets are main
arterial roads and 60% are residential.
The chart above is best suited for arterial roads as residential roads
would have lower ADT counts. Let’s
assume we reconstruct our arterial roads on a twelve year schedule and our
residential streets on a sixteen year schedule. Accordingly, we would rehabilitate
approximately 3.3 miles of arterial roads and 3.75 miles of residential roadway
annually. Even with all of our roadways
returned to a given standard and with us providing adequate preventative
maintenance, our annual rehabilitation cost would be between $1,900,000 and $3,500,000,
which doesn’t included the $500,000 a year that should be spent on routine/preventative
roadway maintenance. These figures represent a simple mill and overlay and do
not take into account drainage repairs or the replacement of underground
utilities.
In 2008, the Town of Longmeadow
contracted with Tighe & Bond, Consulting Engineers and Environmental
Specialists to complete a water system evaluation. The results of this study
indicated we had nearly $55,000,000 worth of short and long-term improvements
to be made to our water system. Since the completion of this study many
improvements have been made to our water system but we still have tens of
millions of dollars worth of needed repairs. We have miles of six inch and four
inch water lines that need replacement to meet capacity requirements in
addition to miles of eight inch lines also requiring cyclic replacement.
In 2008, the Town of Longmeadow
contracted with Tighe & Bond, Consulting Engineers and Environmental
Specialists to complete a sewer system evaluation with focus on operations and
maintenance. Although the report mentioned the general condition of many of the
systems components, most of their recommendations for improvements were for
maintenance and operational issues. The report recommended many operational
items which have been cared for and/or are currently being pursued for correction.
Many ongoing activities are collecting additional data on our system to more
accurately forecast future improvements. Even though the results of the study
were more concerning to future maintenance procedures, it still outlined over
$2,000,000 in needed improvements stating “As DPW implements report recommendations we
anticipate additional sewer system problems will be identified, especially in
the older sections of the community situated along Longmeadow Street. As
problems are identified, additional funds will be necessary to repair and
update the system.”
We have approximately 71.5 miles of
sidewalks. Our sidewalks like our roads
are in various states of need and require a considerable amount of
rehabilitation. If we assume that 1/3rd
of our sidewalks currently need replacement (conservative estimate) it will
cost us $5,300,000 to complete these repairs. This year the Select Board
recommended that $280,000 be allocated towards this program with funds from the
capital improvement program. Even if
this effort is continued in the future, it will still take us 18.92 years to
eliminate the current backlog.
In a study completed by JCJ Architecture
in 2007 on fifteen of Town of Longmeadow’s buildings showed an estimated
backlog of work including schools to be approximately $123,000,000.
In this brief overview I have provided
some insight on the growing problem of deferred maintenance and repair on just
five critical resource groups in our community. Other resources not included
would be parking lots, streetlights, signs, trees, landscape areas, recreation
areas, drainage systems, dams, traffic
signals, ADA compliance, just to mention a few of the other areas that demand
equal attention during the year.
Just with the resource groups shown it
is estimated that we have maintenance and repair backlog of approximately
$213,000,000. As staggering as this figure is, it doesn’t take into
consideration the millions of dollars we need to add to our maintenance and
repair annual budgets to provide adequate preventative maintenance in the
future to keep our resources at an acceptable standard. And these figures don’t
take into account the deficiencies of the resource groups not mentioned in this
brief overview of our Town’s resources.
I have identified a problem that our community faces
and I have outlined a process for improvement. I am hopeful that our new town
manager will embrace some of my suggestions as he develops an action plan for
the future of our community that avoids making the same mistakes from the past.
We can reverse the degenerative curve on the condition of our resources, but it
is going to involve varying degrees of change, growth, and increased revenues.
The residents of Longmeadow deserve to live in a
well maintained community where our attention ensures that our resources
receive adequate maintenance attention to preserve and protect them for the enjoyment
of future generations.[1]
Richard Foster
Although
I am a Select Board member these views are my personal views and observations
and should not be considered as the official opinion of the Longmeadow Select
Board.
[1]
Committing to the Cost of Ownership, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
1990
Engineering Report, State of the Infrastructure Town
of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, February 2010
JCJ Architecture Town-Wide Facilities Study, 2007
Tighe & Bond Sewer System Evaluation, 2008
Tighe & Bond Water System Evaluation, 2008
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