2016 Local Streets and Roads Report:
Average Pavement Condition in California In Decline
The biennial report on the condition of California’s local streets and roads has been published and, as expected, it shows a continuing decline in the condition of our local transportation network. The 2014 report showed the overall Pavement Condition Index (PCI) at 66 out of one hundred—or at risk. The latest report shows another full point drop in the average PCI to 65.
The report is a product of a partnership between CSAC, the League of California Cities, the County Engineer’s Association of California and Regional Transportation Planning Agencies. It is designed to track the condition of local streets and roads in every city and county in the state.The 2016 Report is posted to the Save California Streets website.
California has continued to deal with a growing shortfall of funding to maintain local streets, roads, and bridges. The main source of revenues for this purpose, the gasoline tax, has not been increased since 1994.Other revenue sources that are indexed to gasoline prices have actually declined. Inflation has further eroded the buying power of the existing dollars and the result is crumbling pavement and a backlog of deferred maintenance.
“We have been telling this story for several years now,” said Kiana Valentine, CSAC’s Legislative Representative for transportation issues. “We hope that our members will use the information in the new report to urge their state legislators to pass a package of funding and reforms needed to fix our streets and roads and bring them into better condition. The longer it takes to start fixing them, the more they deteriorate.” Valentine notes that the special legislative session on transportation issues remains in effect through the end of November.