By Mark Carlisle
Twitter: @mwcarlisle

Glendale is amid a pavement management plan meant to revive street conditions that dropped when maintenance funding was slashed during the city’s economic downtown. Now, city staff and City Council are determining how much the city will need to spend on road upkeep years down the line and where that money will come from.

A staff presentation at a City Council meeting projected a giant deficit for the city’s Transportation Department if street maintenance spending was increased to what staff thought was necessary.

“It’s really simple. We, in the out years, have not programmed the required amount of money to keep the streets where they need to be, even considering the work we’re doing right now,” said Assistant City Manager Chris Anaradian during the presentation to Council. “The work we’re doing right now will degrade over time if we don’t adequately fund our pavement management program.”

Staff said it would return to Council in a few months to present funding options for the Transportation Department, which could include cutting planned spending to buses and Dial-a-Ride, seeking grant funding and/or drawing down the city’s transportation reserve or general fund. Any change in policy would have to be approved by City Council.

Mr. Anaradian noted that though the city has spent $50 million on pavement management in the last three years to make up for a lack of maintenance during the city’s economic downturn during and after the Great Recession, it must continue to spend on pavement management in the future.

“Pavement is constantly in flux. It’s either aging or it’s being refreshed so it can age again,” Mr. Anaradian said.

Staff’s presentation to Council showed the cheapest and most sustainable way to maintain streets is to perform minor maintenance about every five years to prolong the street’s life rather than wait until the street deteriorates to need far more extensive maintenance or to be entirely reconstructed. The latter options are far more expensive than minor, period maintenance.

Since starting its pavement management program three years ago, Glendale has spent just under $17 million per year on pavement management. It plans to spend $10 million this fiscal year and $5.2 million each year after that.

Spending $5.2 million a year equates to about 3.4 cents per year per square foot of pavement across the 152 million square feet of pavement in Glendale.

City staff examined what other cities and towns across Arizona, New Mexico and Texas spent on pavement management and, after also factoring in cost inflation, determined the city should be spending more than three times that amount, about 11.6 cents per square foot of pavement per year or $17.7 million total per year, in order to maintain its desired road quality standard.

The increased investment in pavement management would bring the city’s total pavement management expenditure to $600 million over 25 years and a $520 million deficit over 25 years in the transportation department.

This calculation already assumes a $7 million annual debt service payment that comes off the city’s books in 2033 will go toward pavement management.

Mr. Anaradian said staff will look for policy change options to present to Council that would both manage the Transportation deficit and properly fund pavement management.

“How do we further model, recommend policy decisions or start to further our growth projections so that we can begin to give you a balanced 25-year program to get the mission done that we need to get done,” he said.

Even with the increased spending, pavement management would not be the biggest cost for the Transportation Department. Staff projects the city’s bus routes and transit management will cost $40 million a year by the end of 25 years, not by adding any routes but by applying a 9% year-over-year increase for growing projected costs for the service.

One option staff presented to help address the deficit was decreasing bus and transit projections to just a 3% year-over-year increase as well as leveling projected spending for the city’s Dial-a-Ride service. These two cutbacks would reduce the Transportation deficit from $520 million to $227 million.

Vice Mayor Joyce Clark of the Yucca District said she did not want to cut back on public transit funding, noting that need for mass transit will continue to increase.

“The whole idea is to get people off streets eventually in vehicles. So, I would hate to see mass transit sacrificed for pavement management,” Ms. Clark said.

Mr. Anaradian said other options to consider to reduce the deficit are seeking grant funding, drawing down the city’s general fund or transportation reserve fund or appealling to the state legislature over the next two decades about increasing municipal payouts from Highway User Revenue Funds, or HURF, which include gas taxes and other automobile fees. HURF revenue has decreased in recent years.

“It’s not performing the way it was designed to, Mr. Anaradian said. “Gas tax is not generating what it used to. And the rise of electric vehicles absolutely impacts our ability to maintain our street programs.”

Cholla District Councilwoman Lauren Tolmachoff asked if, to help fund pavement management, the city could use some of the bond capacity it had available for light rail but chose not to use.

Assistant City Manager Vicki Rios explained bonds are generally taken out for new construction, not for maintenance.

“We don’t want to borrow for 25 years and be paying debt for 25 or 30 years on something that only lasts 10 years,” Ms. Rios said.

Mark Carlisle can be reached at mcarlisle@newszap.com or found on Twitter @mwcarlisle.