Board of Aldermen — 4/11/17 Page 2
Also, Mr. President, | wanted to discuss one of the issues that is on for a vote tonight, a significant one, and
that is the proposed five-year paving plan that is set forth in R-17-92, which was recommended for final
passage by the budget committee. What this will do is enable us to improve our streets, which are
deteriorating, help with potholes which we see throughout the city at this time of year.
The value of our infrastructure, that is our streets, not including sidewalks, is estimated to be at $450 million.
It’s one of the city’s largest assets. We are attempting to undertake a problem that will enable us to maintain
the value of that very valuable asset.
In the past several years, | have, and | think all of us have, received complaints from many citizens regarding
the conditions of streets. Many streets need to be repaved, many have declined in character. A few years ago
we did increase the amount of the paving budget from approximately $1 million or $1.5 million, depending on
the year, up to $2.3 million. At that time, we moved the street paving revenue fund from within the combined
annual municipal budget to outside it, and we have maintained the funding of that program at about $2.3
million.
As a result, we have been paving above four to six miles of streets every year. Now we have the opportunity
to do something more significant and take a big leap forward in improving the conditions of our streets. Over
the course of the last year or so Stantec, which is an engineering firm, has done a paving management study
which has estimated the PCI, or the paving condition index, of all of Nashua’s streets. There are about 1,200
streets in Nashua and about 300 miles of streets. They are recommending an ongoing pavement
management maintenance plan.
We talked through this in some detail with the Budget Committee. | know you have all received copies of the
report. It makes a number of, | think, very telling points as to why we should undertake an improvement in our
initiatives to pave more streets. The state near the beginning of the report that the goal is to save money in
both the short and long term by developing a good road repair program that minimizes expenditures. They
point out that a roadway, and | am quoting again, “A roadway worsens slowly at the beginning of its projected
life.” In other words, once it is paved the condition is maintained for some time and deteriorates very slowly.
“But this level of deterioration increases drastically as the pavement reaches near middle age.” As the surface
gets older, the rate of deterioration picks up. They make this the point, and this is kind of one of the
underlining points of the entire study: “The point where pavement approaches middle age is considered the
critical zone in the pavement’s life.” As the pavement approaches middle age that’s the critical zone. They say
it is relatively inexpensive to keep a roadway in good service up to the point where it reaches middle age but
then after the middle age point it becomes much more expensive to keep the roadway in good service
condition.
They rank the streets and allocate them into five different sort of zones or categories based upon their
condition. This is all based on the PCI, the paving condition index. The best streets are the so-called “do
nothing” streets meaning nothing needs to be done in the short term. The next category are streets which
require routine maintenance. The third category is our streets that require preventative maintenance. The
fourth category are those that require structural improvement, and the fifth category are those that require base
rehabilitation. In other words, almost complete rebuilding.
The report says a road in need of preventative maintenance is in the critical zone of the pavement deterioration
curve. In other words, those in kind of this middle category. It is in this range of the pavement life cycle that
the most cost effective repairs can be made. Further deterioration warrants a significantly more costly
response. They are saying when you get to the middle age, the preventive maintenance category, you really
need to do something right away if you want to prevent much larger expenditures in the future. Of the 300
miles of streets we have here in Nashua, 103 miles are in the preventative maintenance category. In other
words, a little over 1/3. The report says without a preemptive strike, the system will undoubtedly continue to
lose roads from the routine and preventative maintenance category into the structural improvement and base
rehabilitation bands. This very costly loss will present a challenge to Nashua officials if the city wants to retain
its roads in good condition. Again, they are saying that 103 miles, the largest category of streets are in this
preventive maintenance category.
