Marine City moves forward with road repair plan

Overall PASER rating for condition of roads is fair

By Barb Pert Templeton

A recent evaluation on the 2024 Pavement and Service Evaluation and Rating System (PASER) report for Marine City streets found the average ratings for asphalt as 4.24 or an overall street condition rating of fair.

The PASER Project Recommendations report was prepared by the city’s engineering firm, Anderson, Eckstein and Westrick, Inc. who summarized the results of the study, conducted on August 29, 2024 by Orchard, Hiltz & McCliment, Inc. (OHM Advisors).

The study consisted of visual inspection and evaluation of each city owned street segment using the guidelines set forth by PASER. Approximately 23% of the city’s streets (by mileage) are in good condition (rating 6-10), 33% are in fair condition (rating 4-5) and 44% are in poor condition (rating 1-3).

City Manager Michael Reaves told the commission at a March 20 meeting that when the PASER report came to the city several months ago several streets were missing and some had improper ratings. So, the city staff reviewed the situation and re-rated the streets, note the ones that were missing and then met to discuss what streets that do appear in the report could be addressed.

“This is one of these reports that we paid for so let’s not just shelve it, let’s do something with it and this (report in the commission packet) is my response back to you, I want to do something with it,” Reaves said.

He said the city gets local and major road funding every year and typically the major funding gets transferred into the local streets and there is still some money in that fund. Reaves said he’s developed approximately five and half miles of streets that the city can address with a phased approach utilizing the dollars available and those funds are outside the water main project.

“What I want to do is take these streets and coordinate them with the water main project in phases,” Reaves said. ,

For an example, he said take an area near Frederick, Catherine and North Parker streets, if the city was doing three streets in that section and it was just a mill and cap for $30,000, he would do it.

“Typically, a complete rebuild is a million dollars a mile, so use that figure as a give and take depending on what’s involved,” Reaves said. “But a number of these streets in a phased approach I can start picking these off so people see their streets being done outside the water project so we’re starting to address these.”

Reaves said it’s a matter of getting things started with the roads while he works to lay out the process of funding the projects for the commission.

Commissioner Jacob Bryson asked if Reaves’ plan is to attack the streets that only need a mill and cap in order to get the most out of funding, they have available. Reaves said the short answer to that is yes.

“I don’t have the money to do a complete rebuild of the streets,” Reaves added.

Commissioner Sean O’Brien said since some of the streets have failed pretty badly and are in such poor shape, can mill and cap be done on those? Reaves said he’d have to evaluate each one with an engineer and he’s not going to waste money doing the simple mill and cap repair if a rebuild is needed.

“If it’s at the point where it’s borderline I’m not going to mill and cap because if the base of the road isn’t good, you’re wasting your money,” Reaves added.

O’Brien said a lot of residents who live on the bad roads have felt overlooked especially since the water project is going in first.

“What is the timeline for this,” O’Brien asked, “I would like to get some sort of direction to them that your road matters and your road is going to get fixed. What that looks like and where it is on the priority list.”

Reaves said once the commission approves the PASER report he will take on the task of having the various streets looked at closely by engineers and a plan will be put in place.

The commission then unanimously approved the PASER project recommendation from the city manager.