How local communities weigh poor surface ratings in planning road construction

If you look at a recent map of major roads around St. Clair County, just over a third appear to show long streaks of red.

Some of those roads often identified to have a surface in “poor” condition — via a Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating system in most municipalities — may be a year or two or more, away from improvement.

But local communities still have plenty of roadwork slated for this construction season.

In Marysville, Barry Kreiner, the city’s public services director, said they target roads annually where they can in a balance of available funding and what aging roadways can be addressed with simpler projects like resurfacing versus a rebuild.

“We could spend five-six million dollars every single year, but we still don’t have that money to spend getting roads up to good or fair,” he said this week.

Kreiner and other officials said they do weigh road conditions when prioritizing which roads are penciled in when, noting those costs and plans can change over time.

According to a map through the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, Marysville is like other cities with major roads, or those outside of neighborhood side streets. Most are in good or fair condition and noted in green and yellow, respectively, on maps.

SEMCOG's map shows that 43% of centerline miles of those roadways, which are characterized as eligible for federal funding, have surfaces in poor condition. For total lane miles at 1,473, it's 44%. In both categories, it was just over 20% and 30% for roads with ratings in good or fair condition.

The agency, which covers seven counties, lists conditions broken up into the three settings based on ratings of 1-10. No data was collected in 2020, and PASER data was collected on all federal aid roads in 2021.

Some of the busiest roads in Marysville like Busha Highway and Gratiot Boulevard are marked red for poor in areas, and some are marked fair. They’re also state highways.

Other major roads like Michigan Avenue or River Road, for example — both also with areas rated in poor condition — are Marysville’s and on tap to be addressed down the road, Kreiner said.

“That one is about four or five years out still,” he said of Michigan, which is eligible for Act 51 dollars through the state and stretches nearly three miles between Ravenswood and Cuttle roads.

On River Road, Kreiner said, “There’s a part that’s rated as poor. Now, that is going to be proposed in, not this coming fiscal year, but the following. So, two years away.”

Smaller projects help maintain good, fair condition roads

Meanwhile, Marysville does have a few other things slated for the rest of 2022.

With mill-and-fills, Kreiner said they’ve targeted Colorado Avenue from Huron Boulevard to 18th Street, St. Bernard Street from Bunce Avenue to Gratiot, and Fifth Street between Connecticut and Kelli avenues, among others.

Then, Connecticut from 15th to 18th, Kreiner said, will see a redone water main, as well as crush and shape later this year. There’s also a fourth phase of work on Huron by the end of August from Busha to River, where he said they’ll replace panels of pavement.

“So, it’s not an entire road, but the bad spots are going to come out,” he said.

Much of the work slated around the county is similar — projects that are less than rebuilds aimed to keep roadways from falling to a lower rating.

Port Huron Public Works Director Eric Witter said the county seat is also focusing on a larger mill and resurfacing project starting this fall and continuing into the spring of 2023.

They’re catching up on maintaining conditions where some of the city’s earliest sewer separate work reshaped local roads two decades ago, spending $4 million to $6 million in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

“Right now, we’re focusing between 10th and 16th (streets), and Cedar up from around Pine Street,” Witter said. “It’s an optimum time. … We have a lot of pavements that are around 20 years old, and this is the time to capture them so you don’t have to do a reconstruct. So, the (sewer-separations) started in (late ‘90s), and then, really got to be a pretty large undertaking from that point forward.

“We have a lot of roads that are aging pretty much at the same time. Our goal is going to capture those fair condition roads and bring them up to good condition, and it gets a longer lifespan out of them.”

Many of those roadways wouldn't show up on maps about roads eligible for federal funds. All encompassed in a 72-block area, according to the PASER map Port Huron shares on its website, the older neighborhood streets affected by sewer-separation work range between good and fair condition and being rated as poor.

However, that map is according to ratings reported in 2018.

Catching up on PASER ratings for all roads

Witter said Port Huron is in a process of having its road ratings updated, adding the 2018 PASER ratings listed are the most recent.

“COVID slowed down pretty much every road agency,” he said.

Much of what goes into ratings, Witter said, comes from the county and MDOT. “That’s got to get pulled together, then that would be produced,” he added. “The ratings are going to change. As time goes on, the roads, good become fair, fair become poor, and poor stays poor.”

A regional MDOT spokesperson wasn’t immediately available for comment this week, but rating maps show most of the state’s roadways in the area are not in “good” condition, though a large stretch of Interstate 69, for example, is.

Pine Grove Avenue, as part of M-25, is mid-construction in Port Huron and Fort Gratiot — and that’s all red between Hancock Street and M-136.

Originally, north-end residents were in for a much more hectic construction season this year with work and closures slated for Gratiot Avenue, which is also rated “poor” in Port Huron.

But Witter said cost estimates came back much higher in the planning process and they had to amend the project through the federal program through which its eligible to receive funding help.

Now, they’ll start reconstruction and other utility improvements next spring on Gratiot between Elmwood Street and Holland Avenue.

“We’re trying to balance the money we have and what roads to do. We’ve got a pretty significant portion of funds for Gratiot, so that’s helping,” Witter said. Including some federal aid, he put overall construction at around $6.7 million.

Annually for the last seven years, the city has also done major reconstruction of roads in its downtown. McMorran Boulevard and Michigan and Quay streets have already been addressed, while Fort Street reconstruction began this month.

To learn more about major road ratings, visit https://maps.semcog.org/PavementCondition.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: How local communities weigh poor surface ratings in planning road construction