During the May 1st Marana Town Council meeting, Public Works Director Mo El-Ali and staff presented a status update of the Town’s six-year Pavement Preservation Program. The presentation covered work completed in the last four years, ongoing work in the current year, and work planned for next year.
Five years ago, the Town adopted a 6-year program to preserve and treat all of the roads in Marana. The goal of the program is to maintain, repair or replace every public road in town.
Specifically, the program follows a proactive maintenance philosophy to improve pavement conditions over time, reduce overall maintenance costs and delay the rate of deterioration due to weather, chemicals and wear and tear over time.
Currently, the Town has 520 lane miles (246 centerline miles), which is about the distance between Marana and Malibu, California. The roads are divided into 1507 pavement segments, which El-Ali said are measured based on the segment’s condition and could be “a few hundred feet to a few miles” in length.
“We maintain detailed information on each segment of road,” El-Ali said, explaining that the town keeps data on the length, width, date of construction, treatments applied, and road rating of each segment. This allows the Town to make sure their attention is on the segments of road that need the most attention.
This attention to detail has resulted in an average pavement condition rating of 72, which is considered a good condition rating.
“Marana’s roads are considered to be the best in the region,” El-Ali said.
Between 2014-2017, the Town accepted 40 new lane miles, an increase of nearly 8 percent.
Since 2014, the Town has reconstructed 36 lane miles, but that includes the RTA project on Tangerine Road as well as work on Avra Valley Road.
Between 2014-2017, the Town preserved 142 lane miles, which is 27 percent of the pavement in the Town of Marana. The cost of the project was $5 million dollars. Most of that money came from state Highway User Revenue Funds (HURF), which include gasoline and use-fuel taxes, motor-carrier taxes, vehicle-license taxes, motor vehicle registration fees and other miscellaneous fees. Most of the roads repaired were in subdivisions.
This current fiscal year the Town will be preserving 66 lane miles at a cost of $1.26 million from HURF, which is 13 percent of Marana’s roadway. This year the focus has shifted more to major roads and includes crack sealing and surface treatments.
2018 also saw the Town participate in the first year of the Regional Local Road Repair Program which is funded by a county-wide property tax. Through this $1.1 million program, 100 more lane miles -19 percent of the pavement will be preserved, mostly with crack sealing.
Year two of the program will see the same 100 lane miles treated with similar surface treatments.
Currently, 77 percent of the Town’s roads have a rating between 70-100, which is considered good to excellent. Just three percent of the Town’s roads have a poor rating and they are already scheduled for improvement, including full reconstruction where needed. “Marana’s roads are considered to be the best in the region,” El-Ali restated.
