Carson City Public Works to present draft of street projects for next fiscal year

A series of street projects are being proposed by the Carson City Public Works Department for the next fiscal year, Carson City Transportation Manager Patrick Pittenger said.

"We have a draft program of projects we are presenting to the Carson City RTC (Regional Transportation Commission) next week on Wednesday, Feb. 8," he said. "At that meeting, we will present proposed route changes for JAC (Jump Around Carson) and proposed road projects."

The RTC meeting will be held inside the Sierra Room at the Carson City Community Center, 851 E. William Street, beginning at 4:30 p.m.

A total of nine projects are being proposed for fiscal year 2017-18, Pittenger said, including eight surface-sealing items and one repaving project called a mill and overlay, where the top two inches of pavement are removed and replacement with new pavement.

Next year's budget for RTC capital projects is estimated to be about $1.6 million, Pittenger said, which is funded by the county gasoline tax.

Estimated cost of the nine proposed street projects is around $1.3 million, he said.

"The entire budget is not being programmed at this time as the funding available is projected," Pittenger said. "The projects are being presented at this time to allow Public Works to implement needed ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) sidewalk work and basic pavement maintenance — like crack sealing and pothole filling — before the eight surface sealing projects."

There are many areas of Carson City with streets in need of repair, he said, where the asphalt is cracking or crumbling and potholes have developed. A map of street conditions found on the Carson City Public Works web page shows the current rating of roadways in Carson City, and their estimated decline since the last update.

Pittenger said the ratings are compiled every few years. The last data collection was performed in 2016 and an update should be forthcoming this year, he said.

"We expect to collect new data this fall and will update the conditions map," he said.

Determining what streets to repair during a fiscal year is a matter of establishing which roadways take priority over others, Pittenger said.

"It is a challenging task," he said. "The annual amount of available funds for capital projects is about $2.3 million a year, including local and federal funds."

However, Pittenger said, the estimated cost of maintaining just the pavements of Carson City streets in current average condition is about $15 million a year. This means what the city has to spend on road repair and the amount that's needed to address all of the repairs is grossly disproportionate.

"Public Works is prioritizing the maintenance of the biggest streets in the city, the arterial and connector streets," he said. "Those streets carry the majority of traffic in the city even though they are a minority of the road system."

But funds available to fully maintain just the high-traffic roadways at optimum levels is still inadequate for the city's needs, he said.

"Unfortunately, there are not sufficient funds to maintain even that portion of the road system at current levels," Pittenger said. "As a result, the conditions of roads of the city are expected to decline overall with the current funding levels."

Prioritization of street maintenance and repair comes from evaluation protocol called a pavement management system used to determine pavement conditions and help select projects, he said.

"The system is designed to extend the life of pavements as best as possible given the available resources," Pittenger said.

For upcoming street projects, he said public works seeks to get timely approval so as to avoid construction delays once the 2017-18 fiscal year begins on July 1.

"Our goal is to award the capital projects to allow construction/implementation as soon after July 1 as possible," he said.

In addition the proposed projects that will be paid for with local funds, Carson City Public Works will also oversee the construction and completion of two federally funded items in the next fiscal year.

"We expect to construct a project which will extend the freeway multi-use path and accomplish a mill and overlay on Airport Road between Butti Way and E. Fifth Street," said Pittenger, who added he expects this item to be completed over the summer.

A complete reconstruction of Silver Sage Drive, between Clearview Drive and Snyder Avenue, is also scheduled to begin during the next fiscal year, he said. But it won't be finished until some time in 2018.

In the mean time, there are still projects to be completed before the current fiscal year ends on June 30.

Those include the completion of traffic signal improvements at the intersection of Carson Street and Winnie Lane, as well as the intersection of Roop and Robinson streets.

There will also be sidewalk improvements to be finished at several points along the Blue Line Trail, Pittenger said, also known as the Kit Carson Trail.

The walking path weaves its way west for 2.5 miles, from North Carson Street downtown through the old historic district neighborhood between Robinson and King streets.

Finally, Carson City Public Works needs to complete reconstruciton of a short section of Sonoma Street, between Saliman Road and Halleck, by the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year.