Pavement Management Program

The Pavement Management Program is characterized by maximizing available funding to extend the life of a street network by keeping "good" roads in "good" condition. The city has divided this into two distinct efforts.

• Pavement Preservation - Preserving the actual driving surface (i.e. asphalt) in an acceptable condition over an extended period of time. This typically involves construction work that avoids digging into the rock below the pavement, but instead restores or improves the existing surface layer of the pavement.
• Street Maintenance - Maintaining everything else that makes the traffic and street system work. This includes snow plowing, pothole patching, fixing traffic signs and signals, street sweeping, sidewalk repair, bridge repair, or vegetation control.

Assessing the Condition of Paved Streets

How do cities assess the condition of a paved street? Engineers use a Pavement Condition Index (PCI). It is a ranking assessment (using a scale of 0=worst and 100=best) on the overall health of a paved street. PCI takes into account several types of road distresses, such as cracking and patching of the asphalt.

View PCI scores for Spokane Valley's Paved Street Network.

Funding Pavement Management

The annual cost for street maintenance and preservation to keep Spokane Valley streets in their current condition is approximately $16 million per year. Since 2011, the city's dedicated funding sources have provided an average of $5 million per year for pavement preservation and $3 million per year on street maintenance, totaling approximately $8 million per year or 50% of the total program cost. These contributions are mostly city funds with some supplemental state/federal grant funds.

There are two main challenges that exist with current funding of the Pavement Management Program.

• First, the city's dedicated sources fund only 50% of the costs needed to keep the streets in their current condition. So while the city streets are in relatively "good" condition today, they will continue to age and fall apart faster than the city can fix them.
• Second, funding sources that have been utilized by the city in the past are not reliable funding sources for the future. In fact, local revenues for the program are declining. To offset declining revenues, the city began an annual transfer of capital reserves in 2019 to offset the unfunded balance needed to fulfill the current program and provide the community with the level of service they have come to expect. This is not expected to be a sustainable practice for funding the city's street maintenance and preservation.

In past years, funds allocated for street repairs and improvements have primarily been designated to arterials, with a much lesser amount directed to repairs to local access streets.

To learn more, view these helpful videos.

• History of Funding (video 4) / History of Funding Powerpoint (PPTX)
• Funding Options (video 5) / Funding Options Powerpoint (PPTX)

Streets Sustainability Committee

The city developed a Streets Sustainability Committee to identify options for long-term sustainability of street maintenance and preservation. The committee presented a final report of its findings to City Council on November 9, 2021. Learn more about committee's scope of work by viewing this helpful Committee Overview video and Committee Overview Powerpoint (PPTX).

View Past Presentations

The city's Streets Sustainability Committee has been meeting monthly since April and the City Council continues to monitor and address pavement preservation needs in Spokane Valley. See some of the more recent presentations to these groups:

Resources

• NCE Evaluation of the Pavement Management Program (2019) (PDF)
• Pavement Preservation and Recycling Alliance - Treatment Resource Center
• StreetScan Storymap for Pavement Management Program
• View Magazine (city publication) (PDF) with Pavement Management article