Q&A: How does the Washtenaw County Road Commission decide which projects to fund?

Q: How does the Washtenaw County Road Commission decide which projects will be funded?

A: Well, we start with a pavement evaluation and also, on the gravel roads, we rely on the recommendations of our operations department led by the foreman, who is in charge of a certain district. The paved roads first — we have annually been assessing the condition of the paved roads based on the state-established system of evaluating pavements. So every segment of pavement is given a rating (from 1 to 10).

Puuri added: Our staff uses those pavement evaluations, comes up with a balance between how much money is available, and what type of fixes would be appropriate to preserve the road conditions.

Q: How long is a segment?

A: Typically at least a half a mile, but it can depend on the condition of the road. If a road changes at a given point, that's usually where a new segment will start.

Q: Can you give an idea of the timeline over which this all takes place?

A: I'll use this this year as an example. We're going to be doing the pavement evaluations in October. We'll have a summary of those conditions through the late fall and winter months. Our board will be establishing a budget by the first of the year. And then through the course of the winter months, we will be developing maps like we did last year. We started out in March with a draft version of this (map) ... and by mid-May, we brought in all of the federal funds identified that would be available, and we identify the right fix and the needs of the roads with the amount of money we had. Some of the money, just as a little side note, is regionally distributed, but it comes to us in that fashion.

Puuri distinguished between funding for roads in urban and rural areas in the county.

He said: There's urban money right in this black line (points to map) - all the area outside of it is rural. So that's a limitation on what we can do out in the rural area, you know? We can't take urban money and move it to the rural, or vice versa. So, we try to get the most bang for our buck in the two areas.

Q: Is the pavement evaluation always done in October?

A: No, the pavement evaluation is not something we have total control over. To basically add more credibility to it, we have a person from the (Washtenaw County) Road Commission, a person from the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study, and a person from (the Michigan Department of Transportation).

MDOT comes down with a van with electronic support instruments in it, and the three people ride the roads and come to an agreement on what the evaluation will be of that given segment of road. This is done around the state, and clearly they can't do every mile, every year. The intent is to try to do every mile, every other year. So that over a two-year period, we have every road — city or village, county, MDOT — all evaluated. ... The (MDOT Asset Management Council) just put out a news release to all the legislators that describes the condition of the roads for every senate district and every house district.

Puuri added the individuals who conduct the pavement evaluation "drive every mile of federal aid (funded) paved road in the county. So they drive city, village, MDOT and the county road system."

Q: How much federal aid does the county receive for road work each year? 

A: Not all roads are on the federal aid system. ... There's $4 million in urban (federal funds), but it's shared. The road commission won't get $4 million each year, we will get somewhere near about 45 percent of it. So we proportionally split that (funding among) the agencies. (Among) the road commission, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Saline, Dexter, Barton Hills.

And then in the rural area, there's a companion pot of money, that's on the order of $350,000 a year, and that is shared between the road commission and the rural transit providers.

• View a map of local roads in southeast Michigan eligible for federal aid.

Those are the standard pots of money that come to the road commission, that kind of speaks to why in the rural area these (projects) are mostly crack sealing and chip sealing, because we can get a lot more resurfacing done. ... Most of the pavement, where there's asphalt pavement placed, is in urban areas because we had access to a bigger pot of money.

According to the county Road Commission, sealcoat, or "chip seal," is a cost-effective form of preventative maintenance used to preserve roads. The cost to sealcoat one mile of a two-lane road is $17,000, and it's expected to last five to seven years. That compares to $98,000 to pave one mile of a two-lane road with bituminous asphalt, which has a life expectancy of about eight to 10 years, according to the road commission.

Q: Is the county further subdivided beyond being either rural or urban, in regard to road work? 

A: Well it is ... we just did a project along Ellsworth Road ... that was a road commission project and it was an urban project. Certainly Pittsfield Township was supportive of our advancing it, but that was our project.

Q: So really, it comes down to whether the project is in a urban or rural area, and then which agency is responsible for it?

A: Yes.

Q: How long is the process, from deciding which projects will be funded, to completion?

Puuri said preventative maintenance projects, such as sealcoat, are a "pretty short process." There is also a "five-year maintenance plan," which is updated annually and consists of projects that would each cost $100,000 or more to complete.

A: Every year we have money set aside to some pavement overlay, and this goes into pavement preservation ... and then we have this county-wide seal coat program. ... So our board has established this five-year capital improvement plan, and in addition, we have federal aid dollars that we pretty much count on. Every year, we reassess how many funding categories will be set aside in the upcoming five-year window of time. This has it's own process and schedule.

After we've worked all these out with the townships, usually what comes out of this is something that couldn't be accomplished. And starting in June, we update this plan once a year, and we say, 'Of those projects that are $100,000 or more that you would like to see accomplished, give us your proposals. And then we evaluate them, and we put them in, they end up in one of two places - they either end up on the funded list ... these are all funded in that five-year window of time, or, in this booklet is (also) an unfunded list.

Q: How significant of a role do gas taxes play in funding roads?

A: The full fund is called the Michigan Transportation Fund, it's made up of gas tax, diesel tax, and vehicle registration fees. The gas tax component is about 50 percent, registration fees are close to 50 percent, diesel tax is a very small percentage relative to the other two.

Puuri said the Washtenaw County Road Commission budget for 2010 was about $33 million.

He added: In this particular year, we're overspent. We're in the red. ... It was known coming into this year that we have to continue to reduce expenses to get this to balance. It's going to be something that is dealt with by our board this year. Are they going to reduce the capital improvement plan as one way? Are they going to reduce routine services — you know, road maintenance? Are they going to reduce staff? So far, we've reduced staff by about 17 percent, which ultimately reduces how much work we can do, too.

So the bigger picture of what's going on is we, like other road agencies, are seeing this pinch where costs continue to go up, we're not meeting the needs, so that's something we're falling further and further behind, and yet the revenue is just not there to keep up with expenses.

Q: What road work currently underway should people know about? 

A: There's still about 20 percent of the preventative maintenance work that needs to be done.

(The Washtenaw County Road Commission plans to place 59 miles of sealcoat this year.)

We have a major intersection job going on at Carpenter and Willis (roads), and we're completing an intersection — that would be a widening and new signal at Carpenter and Willis (in York Township) — and there's some turn lanes and a signal being added at Rawsonville and Bemis (roads) that's ongoing but it's about complete.

(Last) week, we're completing and reopening the Dexter-Pinckney (Road) Bridge, it's been closed all summer, really since spring, so it's a big week for us getting that bridge reopened. It's a replacement of the old bridge, it increased the clearance so pontoon boats can get under it, and the road was built with a wider surface so there's some paved shoulders for walkers to walk across and bikers can get across more safely. There's a Geddes non-motorized path that is being built in Superior Township. Oak Valley Drive is a project that's going to be started after Labor Day, that's going to be a resurfacing and pedestrian crossing (in Pittsfield Township).

Q: How can residents lobby for road work to be done, express concerns, ask questions?

A: To our road commission directly. We have meetings twice a month, first and third Tuesday of the month at 1 p.m. People can send us an e-mail through our website, they can call us, if they can't be here, they can send a letter, and that gets presented to our road commission — so there's many different ways people can get their comments or requests in."

Q: Do you have any other final comments or thoughts?

A: I would just emphasize that we put a lot of effort into keeping our website up-to-date ... one tab called "road work" quickly leads you into either a listing of projects by township, or a map that shows all the major projects.

Puuri also encouraged area residents to follow the Washtenaw County Road Commission on Twitter.

Heather Lockwood is a reporter for AnnArbor.com, reach her at heatherlockwood@annarbor.com or follow her on Twitter.