Marin road conditions remain mostly mediocre, report says
Pavement in some areas at risk of breaking down; repairs urged
Road conditions declined in most Marin County communities last year, and repairs will only get costlier without action soon, according to a new report.
The report by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional planning and funding agency, scores roads in all nine Bay Area counties each year based on the number of cracks, potholes, patching, rutting and depressions they have. The report, known as a pavement condition index, scores roads on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being a newly paved road.
Collectively, Marin County roads had a score last year of 66, which is considered “fair” and indicates roads are at significant risk of breaking down. The county received the same score in 2018 and 2019.
Marin’s score was the third lowest of the nine counties, higher than Napa at 56 and Sonoma at 55.
The region maintained a “fair” score of 67 for the fifth consecutive year.
Alfredo Pedroza, chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said the coronavirus pandemic halted some road work in 2020. While he said the state’s gas tax increase approved in 2017 through Senate Bill 1 has provided funds to “hold the line against deterioration,” the Bay Area’s roads are still well below the commission’s target score of about 85.
“The data give us a real appreciation for just how many miles of roadway the Bay Area has and a reminder of how old a lot of our pavement is, too,” said Pedroza, a Napa County supervisor.
Roads that reach below a score of 60 likely require major rehabilitation and possible replacement, which can increase
maintenance costs by five to 10 times, according to the commission.
Of the 12 Marin jurisdictions in the report, scores dropped for seven: Belvedere, Fairfax, Ross, Novato, Corte Madera, unincorporated Marin County and Sausalito. Scores improved for Tiburon, Mill Valley, Larkspur and San Anselmo. San Rafael’s score remained unchanged at 65.
Tiburon, Ross, Mill Valley and Belvedere were ranked in the “good” category with scores higher than 70. They also have some of the lowest number of miles of road to maintain in the county.
One standout community recognized in the report was the city of Larkspur. Once called out by the commission in 2016 as having some of the worst roads in the Bay Area, Larkspur has increased its score from 42 in 2017 to 59 in 2020. While the city’s roads are still considered “at risk,” meaning most require major repairs, it is on track to improve its score to the high 70s and low 80s in the coming years, said Larkspur Public Works Director Julian Skinner.
Instrumental in this improvement, Skinner said, was the voters’ passage of Measure B in 2017. It increased the city’s sales tax from half a percent to three-quarters percent to fund road repairs.
The measure allowed the city to issue about $25 million in bonds to fund five years of repairs, which began in 2019. The city is repaving about a fifth of its roads each year and has spent $13 million so far on about 13 of the 25 miles of road in the city, Skinner said.
“We’re about halfway through,” Skinner said.
“We’ll be paving the last half of the streets next summer and some potentially the summer afterward.”
Another strong improvement was in Mill Valley, which increased its score from 65 in 2018 to 73 in 2020, bringing its roads from a “fair” to “good” ranking. City voters approved a parcel tax increase in 2016 to charge $266 per residence increasing by 2% each year for 10 years.
Fairfax was the only community in Marin that had roads drop to an “at risk” score. The town’s score decreased from 60 in 2019, which is considered fair, to 58 last year.
Jonathon Goldman, the town’s interim public works director, declined to be interviewed about the scores on Thursday. He referred to recent project updates provided to the Town Council on Wednesday, including plans to award construction contracts for street repaving in March.
A copy of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission pavement quality report is online at bit. ly/3lq6okL.