MTC Report: Walnut Creek Streets in Good Shape

Walnut Creek streets are in better shape than many other Bay Area cities, according to the 2011 Pothole Report, released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

The MTC ranked the overall pavement conditions of streets and roads on a scale of one to 100, giving each jurisdiction a “pavement condition index” or PCI.

Walnut Creek has a PCI of 73, according to the MTC report, compared to an average index of 66 for the Bay Area.

“I feel it’s a good score,” said Heather Ballenger, public services director for Walnut Creek. “It’d be great to be the best, but a 73 is a good score and we’ve been consistent.”

Where’s the Money?

Ballenger said Walnut Creek’s road funding comes from several places, including gas tax, impact fees on solid waste and money from Proposition 1B, a bond measure passed in 2007. The city also applies for grants when possible to fund specific projects.

One main decline in funding comes from the gas tax, Ballenger said.

 “The gas tax has been stagnant for years,” Ballenger said. “We get per penny on each gallon, so we lost the ability to fund things because of inflation and fuel efficiency, which is a good thing but brings less revenue.”

Funding sources for road maintenance have declined in the Bay Area in general, according to the MTC, which coordinates transportation and planning for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

Reasons include declining sales tax receipts since 2007 and the loss of purchasing power due to inflation.

The gas tax loses 3 percent, on average, of its purchasing power each year due to inflation, according to the MTC, and the price of pavement has nearly tripled in the past 15 years.

Other cities and counties around the Bay face similar scenarios. The MTC’s goal, laid out in its Transportation 2035 Plan, is to boost the area’s pavement condition index to 75 from the current 66 by 2035.

Meeting that goal will require a $25 billion combined investment — almost three times the amount currently spent on road maintenance in the Bay Area.

The Costs Will Keep Going Up

Just as preventing health problems is less expensive than curing disease, the same is true for streets. Steady maintenance is cheaper than emergency repairs.

“A municipality that spends $1 on timely maintenance to keep a section of roadway in good condition would have to spend $5 to restore the same road if the pavement is allowed to deteriorate to the point where major rehabilitation is necessary,” the Pothole Report authors state.

Steady maintenance is also good for the planet. The MTC notes that routine, relatively inexpensive maintenance helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions because it requires less asphalt and fewer trips by heavy trucks than major repair projects.

Plus, smooth roads are safer for cyclists and improve the fuel economy of cars, the MTC notes. Drivers in the San Francisco-Oakland area pay an extra $706 in vehicle operating costs each year because of bad roads, according to a 2010 report cited by the MTC.

Ballenger said the city tries to take preventative measures to make the roads last longer.

“Take care of infrastructure you have in place before you build new infrastructure,” Ballenger said. “At MTC, when local agencies try to compete for dollar, that’s one of the arguments that we make as a local agency.”

The Pothole Gods

Each year, the city’s Engineering and Transportation and Public Works departments convene to determine which of the city’s streets will get a makeover.

They rely on a computer modeling system, maintenance reports and field inspections to come up with a list of ailing roadways that is “very much longer than the money” they have to spend on them, Johnson said.

So they whittle down the list, leaving many cracking roads to wait out another year.

The city with the lowest PCI is Rio Vista, which sits on the Sacramento River Delta, has a PCI index of 42. 

Even the relatively wealthy East Bay town of Orinda has the fifth lowest PCI index in the Bay Area. On the flip side, the highest street ranking went to Brentwood, with a PCI of 86.