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represented at every com- munity event. The Council placed the measure on the February 2008 Presidential Primary election ballot. The voters passed the “El Cerrito Pot- hole Repair, Local Street Improvement and Mainte- nance Measure” by 71 per- cent. To implement the mea- sure, we developed a work plan with the help of Avila Project Management. In addition, we relied heavily on StreetSaver, our PMP software devel- oped by the Metropolitan Transportation Com- mission (MTC), to develop this improvement program for over a year. And with the assistance of Nichols Consulting Engineers, we analyzed our street data to figure out a plan of attack. First, I should summarize what we promised to the voters. Although the ordinance was writ- ten to allow many peripheral improvements such as sidewalks, the overt promise to voters was to improve pavement condition. We esti- mated that we would not have enough funding to bring all the streets up to good condition, and expected to pull our average PCI up to 70 (from 53). We also promised to perform the bulk of the “catch up” work in four years. W hen I came to work with the City of El Cerrito as the new public works director in 2004, the city had just invested a one-time amount of $3 million in paving projects. El Cerrito is a small city with about 68 miles of street centerline, so a $3 million invest- ment was significant. In early 2006, the results of our Pavement Manage- ment Program (PMP) update came in: Pavement Condition Index (PCI) was 53 out of 100 (down from 63 two years earlier); and our backlog was then $21.2 mil- lion (up from $7 million). In addition, it was going to take $1.3 million per year just to keep our PCI from falling even lower. With a pavement maintenance budget of $250,000 per year, we predicted our PCI would drop to 44 in five years with the backlog grow- ing to $25.5 million. In February 2007, the Council learned that citizens rated the poor condition of our streets as their highest priority, based on polling to deter- mine how the community felt about various major capital improvements. Staff was given clear direction to develop a local sales tax that would require a two-thirds voter approval. Our plan was to promote a ballot measure with a realistic improvement plan, and, if approved, implement the plan quickly. We had until November 2007 to fully develop a new ordinance, a complete work plan, and ballot lan- guage. We also launched a public information campaign to publicize the measure and receive feedback; I spent my summer making presenta- tions to various community groups and being March 2011 Street Talk Current Issues in Pavement Maintenance and Management Metropolitan Transportation Commission Volume 24 Number 1 Inside: • Upcoming Events page 2 • MTC Puts $84 Million to Work Keeping Bay Area Roads in Good Repair page 3 • Software Updates and News page 4 • StreetSaver® Pavement Management Tip page 4 User Week Starts March 28, 2011 See page 2 for details El Cerrito Pothole Repair A Street Success Story By Jerry Bradshaw, Director of Public Works, City of El Cerrito (Continued on page 2) ---PAGE BREAK--- Street Talk/March 2011 It was a very aggressive schedule. Year 1 completed preparatory work such as utility relocation and included three contracts: patch paving, curb ramps, and a full paving project on three streets utilizing a federal Surface Transporta- tion Program (STP) grant. We also began developing the schedule for the 2009 projects with an eye toward years 3 and 4. In the past, I relied on Street- Saver to lay out the treatments with minor modifications based on in-house knowledge of the streets. Full blown design documents were not the norm. With the upcoming fast track program, the same was true. But the prep work was dependent on future treatments, so we had to have at least a preliminary treatment assigned to each street. With 44 percent of our streets in the Very Poor category (PCI < 25), we faced a huge list of streets that needed reconstruction. I was consid- ering asphalt rubber (AR) cape seal after learning about it at a seminar. The AR cape seal works best if the underlying structure is sound and alligator cracking is due to age and weathering instead of structural failure. We decided to use AR cape seal as a treatment for a third of the city’s streets, and to patch pave failed sec- tions in preparation. Another factor in our favor was the construction market and its sagging bid prices. We consistently received bids well below our engineer’s estimates, allowing the City Council to authorize larger- than-normal contingency funding. The fast-track program led us to issue bid documents with rough estimates of quantities, and we found ourselves designing specific treatments in the field with a can of marking paint while the contractor was mobilizing. The large contingency funding allowed us to add more work at favorable pricing. This modus operandi proved to be exhausting yet fruitful. As the 2009 pro- jects included significant extra work, we decided to compress the overall sched- ule into three years instead of the promised four. While this would deprive us of one year’s worth of rev- enue (approximately $600,000), we had saved more than that amount in low bid prices. In addition, we obtained grant funding for the program including a federal stimulus grant (being shovel ready) and two CalRecycle grants for the AR cape and some rubberized asphalt concrete work. After only three years, the Street Improvement Program spent $14.4 mil- lion ($10.5 from bond proceeds, $2.1 million from annual revenues, and $1.8 million in grants.) We resurfaced 68 percent of our streets, built over 400 new curb ramps, and replaced 50 storm drain crossings. Our fast-track program kept our soft costs of design, inspection, and administration below 20 percent. But the big news is the resulting pavement condition. In 2010 we com- missioned Nichols (through the MTC Pavement Management Technical Assis- tance program) to perform another update to our PMP, and discovered that our new systemwide average PCI was 85 and our backlog was only $500,000! This exceeded our wildest fantasies of success. Our ongoing annual mainte- nance costs will now be a modest $500,000 per year instead of the $1.3 million in 2006. The system aver- age PCI of 85 is about as good as it can physically be since we do not normally treat a street until its PCI is near 70. The take away from this success is that IT CAN BE DONE! It was not easy, and we were lucky in a few of our steps along the way. But I believe you make your own luck. The City’s man- agement team had the foresight and tal- ent to explore options and prepare rec- ommendations to our City Council. The Council had the courage to move forward with a ballot measure and authorize me to move quickly and flexi- bly in the implementation. But most of the credit goes to the cit- izens of El Cerrito. They were not afraid to tax themselves to make a profound difference in their community. The trust that the City’s management team had been building through years of honest, transparent, and productive work paid huge dividends in this instance. I feel privileged to be working for this community and its citizens. Per- haps there are other communities out there with the character to perform a similar miracle. Upcoming Events StreetSaver® User Week March 28 – 31, 2011 Location: MetroCenter, 1st Floor, Auditorium 101 Eighth Street, Oakland 94607 Technology Transfer Workshop – Full Depth Rehabilitation Monday, March 28 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon General Users Meeting Monday, March 28 1 to 4 p.m. Workshop I: Pavement Distress Survey Tuesday, March 29 (Room 171) 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Location: Alameda County Conference Center 4th Floor, Fremont Room 125 Twelfth Street, Oakland 94607 Workshop II: StreetSaver Training: Basic Wednesday, March 30 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Workshop III: StreetSaver Training: Budget Analysis Thursday, March 31 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Next User Week: Nov. 28 – Dec. 1, 2011 Contact Kimberly Hughes <[EMAIL REDACTED]> for more information on User Week. El Cerrito (Continued from page 1) ---PAGE BREAK--- Street Talk/March 2011 MTC Puts $84 Million to Work Keeping Bay Area Roads in Good Repair By Craig Goldblatt, MTC A key priority in the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s regional investment strategy is to sus- tain the nine-county Bay Area region’s transportation system. To help cities and counties maintain their streets and roads, MTC has funded a Local Streets and Roads (LSR) Rehabilitation Program using federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) funding. The most recent cycle of this pro- gram provided roughly $84 million to rehabilitate Bay Area streets and roads over the next two years. MTC relies on the region’s county congestion management agencies to work with their constituent jurisdictions and select the most promising and worthy projects for funding. Street pavement in good repair “moves” people by sup- porting complementary modes of travel, including automo- bile travel, walking, bicycling and transit. In many cases, local sponsors have taken advantage of other programs to enhance the performance of a street by making it safer and more comfortable for bicyclists and pedestrians. This design approach is referred to as “complete streets.” For example, a successful street project may include class II bicycle lanes, streetscape enhancements, bus stops and pedestrian features such as wider sidewalks and plazas. Two programs which fund these complementary street features are the county Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) program and the Regional Bicycle (RB) program, both of which are managed by county congestion management agencies. The table below summarizes the funding made available to Bay Area jurisdictions for these three programs over the current two year period — including federal fiscal years 2010-11 and 2011-12. Alameda Contra Costa Marin Napa Santa Clara San Francisco San Mateo Solano Sonoma TOTAL $18,057,000 $10,527,000 $3,344,000 $2,405,000 $18,585,000 $7,435,000 $8,250,000 $6,904,000 $8,931,000 $84,438,000 Local Streets and Roads Program Regional Bicycle Program Total Transportation for Livable Communities Program $3,706,000 $2,166,000 $1,583,000 $581,000 $5,122,000 $1,313,000 $1,574,000 $1,035,000 $2,444,000 $19,524,000 $5,667,000 $4,223,000 $970,000 $518,000 $6,166,000 $2,990,000 $2,196,000 $1,277,000 $1,300,000 $25,307,000 $27,430,000 $16,916,000 $5,897,000 $3,504,000 $29,873,000 $11,738,000 $12,020,000 $9,216,000 $12,675,000 $129,269,000 ---PAGE BREAK--- Street Talk/March 2011 Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter 101 Eighth Street Oakland, CA 94607-4700 [PHONE REDACTED] www.mtc.ca.gov Executive Director: Steve Heminger Deputy Executive Directors: Ann Flemer, Policy Andrew Fremier, Operations Director, Programming and Allocations: Alix Bockelman Manager, Regional Streets and Roads Program: Theresa Romell Managing Editor: Amy Burch Copy Editor: Karin Betts Design and Layout: David Cooper Software Updates and News By Sui Tan, MTC Target-Driven Scenario The Target-Driven (formally known as PCI-Driven) Scenario Calculation is entering the final phase of beta testing. We want to thank our local agencies and consultant beta testers. Your feed- back has made StreetSaver® more attuned to user needs. The release date is scheduled in late spring 2011. Future Enhancements MTC has applied for a research and development grant from CalRecycle. If the grant is approved, MTC will embark on developing new perfor- mance curves for asphalt rubber and PCI improvement models for various pavement preservation treatments. The research will take about six months to complete and we anticipate that the new curves will be available in Street- Saver by fall 2012. Our software development team will proceed at full speed in developing the asset management module. MTC will reconvene the Asset Management Steer- ing Committee for the acceptance of the concept. The initial phase of the asset management module will provide an inventory system, as well as a needs assessment using replacement cost. Users will be able to keep track of non- pavement components, including (but not limited to) traffic signs, sidewalks, curbs and gutters, street lights, traffic signals and storm drains. With smartphones gaining populari- ty, MTC is exploring the possibility of providing a mobile version of Street- Saver for mobile devices — such as smartphones, tablets or eReaders — to access StreetSaver via WiFi or 3G/4G connections. The mobile version would be independent of operating systems; instead, it is a Web-based application that will work on any browser. Two ver- sions may be available: Lite and Pro. The Lite version would be geared toward users that need to assess pave- ment conditions but do not need to run budget analysis, while the Pro ver- sion would include budget analysis fea- ture that can be linked to StreetSaver Online. Online Training StreetSaver users soon will be able to sign up for online training. MTC is developing full-fledged webinars on StreetSaver. The webinars will typically run about 2-4 hours and will cover a series of StreetSaver topics. In addition, MTC will soon roll out “bite-sized” video tutorials on how to use the soft- ware. These 3 to15-minute tutorials are designed to cover fundamental, inter- mediate and advance features of Street- Saver. It is an excellent tool for just-in- time training and as refresher courses. The video tutorials will be available on demand, and pricing has yet to be determined. Street Talk StreetSaver® Pavement Management Tip Tip: To find the current overall PCI of your street network as of the day you run the report, follow these steps: 1. Click “Reports” under the “Reporting” module 2. Select “Network Summary Statistics” report