City Manager's Column:  A More Modest Street Program Proposal.

2/10/03

Some of you may have noticed the January 2003 web site column that I wrote.  It talked about a large scale street program that involved bonding and the use of assessments as a means for financing such projects.

This column offers a more modest approach that attempts to provide a program that does not use bonding or assessments, but, instead, tries to live within what we expect to receive from our annual allocations of federal highway funds and Road Use Tax.

The basic components of a more modest strategy might include:  

1.)  Use Our Federal Highway Funds In Coordination With Local Funds.  In previous years, the City only received a small annual "sub-allocation" of federal highway funds.  This amounted to about $19,000 per year.  The bulk of all other federal  highway funds was awarded competitively throughout our multi-county region.  Since Maquoketa's projects didn't score well in this competition, few projects were done here.

A few years ago, the members of our region voted to allocate federal money according to population.  This was better for Maquoketa than the previous competitive process because it assures us an annual allocation of about $80,000-$100,000 per year in federal highway funds. 

For every dollar spent on a project that uses federal funds, $.80 in federal money has to be matched by $.20 in local money.  The local match can come from bonding, assessments, general fund tax revenue, or Road Use Tax (RUT.)  When possible, the use of RUT is preferable because it doesn't impact property taxes--it comes from the State of Iowa.

When the change from a competitive system to a population system was made, the City started banking its funds for a project to reconstruct the southern half of Western Avenue .  This project was estimated to cost, not counting $91,250 for new water main, about $505,000.  Of this, $404,000 will be federal and about $101,000 will be local.  It took us about 4 years to "bank" both our federal money and matching local money, in this case, RUT.  The project on Western will have enough funding to proceed in FY 03-04.

The following streets are qualified to use federal highway funds for projects:

Western Ave

E Summit/W Summit

Jacobsen Drive

N Main/S Main

E Maple

S Matteson Ave from E Summit to E Maple

S Vermont/N Vermont

W Quarry/E Quarry from N Vermont to Anderson

Anderson

Pershing Road

N 2nd Street from W Platt to W Quarry

As long as projects in our region receive federal highway funds on a population basis, we should try to match projects on these streets as such funding becomes available.  We should be prepared to "bank" RUT that we receive annually to serve as our match. 

2.)  Projects on North Street, N Olive, and N Otto.  For the past few years, we've also been saving portions of our annual allocations of RUT to do projects on these streets.  To some degree, each street also needs either water main or sanitary sewer work, so we have also been setting aside money in our water and wastewater capital improvement plans or CIPs for these purposes. 

According to our timetable, we'd have enough money saved to do a project on N Otto in FY 04-05 and North Street and N Olive in FY 05-06.

The advantage of using this timetable is that streets are done as soon as we can pay for them.  But, the disadvantage in this particular case might be the close proximity of the streets that are involved.  For example, it might be a better use of funds and the bidding process to have all of these projects bid for completion as one project rather than two.

3.)  Alternatives to Seal Coating.  Our current RUT budget for FY 03-04 has about $97,000 available for projects such as road maintenance. 

Recently, the Public Works Dept took measurements of several streets that they have viewed with an area paving company.  The paving company then provided us with cost estimates for the milling off of old asphalt, transporting it to a new location for a new use, and replacing it with an asphalt overlay of 2.25 inches.

I should emphasize that the figures we were given were budgetary estimates--actually bidding would have to take place later.  The estimates also don't include the cost of patching and the relocation/lowering of fixtures, manholes, and water values.

These are the estimates that we received:

a.)  Complete milling of Kathey Drive , Susan Drive , and the intersection of E Grove, Kathey Drive, and Butternut

                        Approx 5075 SY

                                    Milling 5075 SY                                             $  6,343.75

                                    Hot Mix Asphalt, 656 tons                            $33,520.00

                                    Mobilization/Traffic                                        $  2,500.00  

                                    TOTAL                                                           $42,363.75

b.)  Overlay of E Summit from Matteson Ave to Birch Drive

                         Approx 7679 SY

                                    Milling Butt Joints                                          $  1,200.00

                                    Hot Mix Asphalt, 993 tons                            $44,873.00

                                    Mobilization/Traffic                                        $   2,500.00  

                                    TOTAL                                                           $48,873.00

c.)  Curb Reveal and Overlay E Summit from Matteson Ave to S Main

                         Approx 4698 SY

                                    Milling 3240 SY                                             $  6,107.40

                                    Hot Mix Asphalt, 607 tons                            $28,395.00

                                    Mobilization/Traffic                                        $  2,500.00  

                                    TOTAL                                                           $37,022.40

d.)  Curb Reveal and Overlay of W Summit from S Main to Western Ave  

                        Approx 11,986 SY

                                    Milling 7992 SY                                             $10,390.00

                                    Hot Mix Asphalt, 1550 tons                          $71,933.00

                                    Mobilization/Traffic                                        $  3,500.00  

                                    TOTAL                                                           $85,823.00

e.)  S Jones from Platt to Summit :  Milling to a depth of 4" across entire cross section and paving with 2.25" of Hot Mix Asphalt  

                        Approx 8532 SY

                                    Milling 8532 SY                                             $12,800.00

                                    Hot Mix Asphalt, 1105 tons                          $55,355.00

                                    Mobilization/Traffic                                        $  3,500.00  

                                    TOTAL                                                           $71,655.00

f.)  N 2nd Street from James Street to Platt:  Diamond grinding of existing concrete until smoothed then concrete overlay

                                     Lump sum                                                     $13,136.00

g.)  S 2nd Street from Platt to Pleasant Street :  Diamond grinding of existing concrete until smoothed then concrete overlay

                                    Lump sum                                                     $16,708.00

4.)  Putting a Program Together.  There might be other streets that the Council will want to look at, but this is one possible program that we might try with the streets listed above.  Remember, this table is based on timing projects as RUT and federal money comes in and is available.  By doing this, we can avoid bonding and assessments.

Footnotes:

--This table assumes that about $100,000 in RUT is available each year to cash-flow these projects.  If this happens, at the end of FY 05-06, about $132,303 should still be available for projects that could still be identified for that year.

--The balance for federal money at the end of FY 05-06 is projected at approximately $33,480.

--Some of our available RUT could be used for seal coating if the goal is to extend the life of a street in order to buy it time until it can be milled and overlayed.

--Millings of old asphalt can be used on parking lots and alleys.  The Public Works Dept can apply them.

--The milling and overlay projects do not assume cost estimates for added work such as placing thicker asphalt in some areas or needing to "core out" and replace damaged base stone.

--Milling and overlaying projects, like the ones proposed, do not require the services of an engineer.

--This plan doesn't make any assumptions about the condition of underground utilities.  However, it should be our practice to televise, or check with a camera, underground utilities before projects are pursued. 

--Finally, this plan suggests doing the projects North St/N Otto/N Olive all in the same year, or FY 05-06.  The cost listed for this overall project reflects the costs of the streets, storm main, miscellaneous, and engineering.  This cost doesn't include the water or sewer main.  However, all such costs are already in our water and wastewater CIPs and funding will be in place when it is needed.