Borough committees receive their preview map of future road repairs
Goal of staff is to develop long-term program to maintain municipal roads
Borough officials have unveiled a new road map — literally — spelling out projects they intend to tackle over the next five years.
Borough Manager John Ernst and Project Manager Chris Kunkel unveiled during council’s Feb. 7 committee meetings the latest version of a five-year project plan they say will help steer the planning of local road repair projects, and could help further stretch local dollars after several projects planned for this year.
“Those projects will cover six miles of roadway work in the borough,” said Kunkel.
“What I want to talk about tonight is that those projects are the start of a five-year plan we’ve put together,” he said.
Over the past several years, borough public works and information technology staff have developed Lansdale’s “Pavement Management System,” a series of color-coded interactive maps depicting all of the 54 miles, or roughly 287,000 linear feet, of roadway in the borough, and the current condition of the roadway itself, the utility lines underneath, and the accompanying curbs and sidewalks.
Taking that total amount of roadway and dividing by an average expected life expectancy of 26 years, Kunkel said, leads to an estimate of roughly 11,000 lineal feet or roughly two-and-a-half miles of roadway the borough should maintain each year.
“We took the data from the GIS pavement management report, and used that to prioritize what roads would be the most likely candidates, and how they should be prioritized,” he said.
A tentative draft map for 2018 through 2022 shows parts of Whites Road, Hancock Street, and several side streets in the southwest portion of the borough slated for paving in 2018, Line Street and side streets in the southeast in 2019, parts of Walnut Street, Cannon Avenue and side streets on the far eastern end of town in 2020, lo-
cal roads between the Hillcrest Shopping Center and Hancock Road in 2021 and more side streets north of Hillcrest in 2022.
The interactive pavement management system map is already posted on the borough’s website and available for residents to interact with, and Kunkel said the ultimate goal is to make the long-term plan available too.
“Our roads, the infrastructure, is probably the borough’s most valuable asset. I don’t know if it’s discussed much, but when you consider the utilities underneath, doing some quick math, you could easily be talking about a $100 million asset, which eclipses anything else the borough has. So we need to maintain that,” he said.
Last year borough council approved a $2.5 million loan meant for repairs of local roads, and the borough also receives state grant money from its liquid fuels program, which comes from transportation taxes and is allocated based on the amount of public roads in a municipality.
“The goal was to try to improve as many roads as quickly as possible, and then create a level of efficiency, both in the planning and execution of that,” Kunkel
“This plan is very aggressive, and very doable at the same time,” he said.
The five roads on the to-do list for 2018 include full utility upgrades and milling and repaving of parts of Whites Road, North Line Street, West Third Street, with milling and paving and microsurfacing of several other local roads, and bid packages could be authorized by council Feb. 21. Kunkel outlined to council’s administration and finance committee the difference between three possible approaches, starting with a complete reconstruction of not just a road but also the water or sewer lines underneath.
“A complete road reconstruction is basically openheart surgery on the road: we open it up, do any and all utility work, close it, mill, overlay, and repave. We take care of all of the issues,” he said.
In areas where underground utilities do not need to be repaired or upgraded but the road bed is in poor condition, roads can be milled and overlaid with a new coat of asphalt without any changes to the lines underneath. Where a roadbed is in better condition, a technique called microsurfacing can be applied, where cracks are filled and a new coat of sealant is applied, and the lifetime of the road can be extended for roughly ten more years.
“I liken this to taking an old wall, that’s structurally sound, materially in good shape, but has some cracks and needs some touch-ups: going in, fixing the cracks, doing repairs, and putting a fresh coat of paint on it,” Kunkel said. An example of microsurfacing can be seen on Jackson Street, where the borough has not done any repairs in recent years, while Upper Gwynedd microsurfaced their portion roughly four years ago, “and you can see, plain as day, the difference in the road,” he said.
Using historical cost data on the two larger types of projects, and estimates for the microsurfacing which has never been done in the borough before, Kunkel said staff have developed an estimated cost of roughly $5 million per year to do full reconstruction on 11,000 linear feet of road per year, but the lower-cost repairs could cut that cost and stretch the timeline.
Administration and finance committee members emphasised that the map will be subject to change depending on the impact winter weather has on local roads, the funds available in the borough budget each year, and other factors.
“All of this is predicated on the assumption that the amount of traffic remains consistent. There’s not increased impact to the roads,” said councilman Leon Angelichio.
“Or a decrease in the number of trash trucks,” councilman Jason Van Dame replied, drawing groans from the rest of the committee as he evoked the lengthy discission last year on local trash haulers.
Angelichio asked if the map incorporates plans from the borough’s neighbors to tackle roads that run along both, so a street like Whites Road or Line Street, both on the to-do list for 2018, can be fully repaired all at once. Ernst said all neighboring municipalities, the North Penn Water Authority, and PECO will all be shared in on the long-term plan.
Kunkel said major projects with utility rebuilds tend to take two full years for planning, approvals, and all of the work to be complete, so those projects will be budgeted for the year they start but not updated on the maps until paving is finished. Future updates will also take into consideration development projects like the Andale Green complex of townhouses currently under construction on Hancock, where infrastructure underground is new, but heavy traffic may make it problematic to schedule.
“On Hancock Street, from Church to Broad, the utilities are in great shape thanks to the Andale development. That road is a prime candidate for a mill and overlay, which we have it slated for this year,” he said.
From Church Road farther east to the borough line, underground utilities and stormwater infrastructure will need further upgrades, so that project is further out on the to-do list.
“Get it repaved, and a lot more people will use it,” Van Dame said.
Ernst said he hopes the map will be used to show council a more complete picture of long-term spending needs, and produce savings in the long run by keeping up with smaller repairs before roads deteriorate into needing larger, more expensive fixes.
“Ultimately the goal ought to be, if you get real aggressive in the next five years and get a lot done, then you don’t take a break for a long time and then start having the same problem all over again in 20 years,” he said.
Angelichio said he though the long-term map could be useful to residents and utilities too, and said PECO had to cut a newly fixed part of Edgemont Avenue to repair their gas lines shortly after a major repaving.
“That road wasn’t paved six months, and there’s a gas leak and they’ve got to cut the road,” he said; Van Dame said he saw a similar repair on a fresh road on Jenkins Avenue after a major rebuild there.
Resident Ed Scheuring said the map could help improve Lansdale’s reputation among its neighbors too, by removing spots where one municipality has paved and another hasn’t: “when I hit North Line Street, I know I’m in Lansdale.”
“That’s going to go away by 2019,” Kunkel replied.
Lansdale Borough Council next meets at 7 p.m. on Feb. 21 at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine St.