Memorandum
City of Lawrence
Public Works
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TO: |
Charles F. Soules, P.E., Public Works Director |
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FROM: |
Mark Thiel, Assistant Public Works Director |
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CC: |
David Cronin, Steve Lashley |
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DATE: |
June 23, 2017 |
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RE: |
Brick Street Maintenance Update |
Background
In October 2005, the first cycle of the street pavement condition inventory for the Pavement Management System (PMS) was completed, which involved a physical inventory and analysis of every street segment within the City of Lawrence. The PMS provides Public Works with a management tool to maintain an inventory of street pavement, their respective condition and maintenance work history, and the ability to identify budget needs and impacts associated with pavement preservation strategies in developing an effective Pavement Preservation Program (P3) as part of our Street Maintenance Program. The pavement condition index (PCI) rating is a number assigned to a pavement segment based on its condition, and ranges from 0-100. A lower number reflects a street with higher severity and more frequently occurring pavement distresses. Examples of factors affecting the PCI rating include: type and severity of cracking (traverse, longitudinal, fatigue), surface defects (spalling, raveling, and pot-holes), rutting, settlements, and pavement base failure.
The program originally was set up to perform crack sealing, microsurfacing, asphalt mill and overlay, and curb and gutter maintenance. In 2009, a concrete street rehabilitation program was added to the program.
In July 2011 the City Auditor recommended that “the City should establish guidance on maintaining streets that are brick and asphalt over brick. Guidance would help the City better maintain those streets. Currently the City does not have a plan for brick street maintenance. While these brick streets represent a small part of the City’s street system (24 miles), they are concentrated in one part of town and are in relatively poor condition.” In the absence of an approved policy, the selection of brick streets for maintenance or reconstruction has been based on availability of transportation enhancement funds or minor repairs utilizing the street maintenance operational budgets.
As part of the process to establish a selection policy for brick street maintenance and reconstruction, we have broken the process into two parts, maintenance and restoration/reconstruction. Staff has collected data, researched to determine a strategy and starting point for the policy. On April 18, 2013, we started the process for public comment with a presentation to the Historical Resource Commission (HRC). On November 11, 2013, we presented to the affected neighborhood associations. The overall feedback received was encouraging. The general feeling was that brick streets need maintenance. Staff presented the policy to the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association in 2014.
On January 21, 2014, staff presented the proposed brick street maintenance policy to the full City Commission. The Commission received the report but did not take action. Staff presented a second round of discussion to the HRC in May of 2014. Until this report, no further discussion or action has taken place with respect to this brick street policy.
Between 2014 and today, the proposed brick street maintenance and restoration/reconstruction policy has not been implemented. However, as part of our annual street maintenance program and our normal internal Street Division’s annual work plan, some maintenance of brick streets has occurred, mostly as needed to avoid a hazardous situation.
With the 2017 street maintenance program, we are planning to perform maintenance on a brick street section (Rhode Island Street – 13th to 14th) provided funding is available at the conclusion of the 2017 street maintenance contracted program. The maintenance will involve removing settled bricks, releveling the roadway, and then resetting the bricks in the worst areas of this block.
Overview of Draft Policy
The policy is broken out into two categories, maintenance and restoration/reconstruction.
Maintenance of brick streets would be determined utilizing the same strategies we currently use for other type pavements. The basic idea is to maintain brick streets to a PCI level consistent with the overall PCI goals for all street categories (arterials, collectors and residential). The type of maintenance would be determined by the established policy.
Restoration/reconstruction of brick streets would be determined using the same policy. The basic concept is that arterials and collectors would be improved to modern paving technology such as asphalt or concrete. Residential streets will be selected based on location, current PCI, funding and overall strategy as outline in the policy and the PMS system.
The City Auditor has reviewed the policy and has reported that it address the intent of the audit.
Bricks
Availability of bricks continues to be a concern. One of the strategies with the proposed policy is that collectors and arterials would be converted to modern paving technology and that would give us a supply of bricks for residential street maintenance. Currently, as we recover existing bricks from other projects, we stock pile them for future use. Typically, when we recover bricks only 40 to 50 percent are reusable. Presently we have a very limited number of bricks for restoration or maintenance. It is staff’s recommendation that as we perform larger scale maintenance or rehabilitations to existing brick streets that new bricks be used. We believe the use of new bricks for repaving would be more cost effective due to the need to salvage, clean, stockpile and sort existing old bricks. In addition, using bricks that are in the condition as most of our existing bricks are would shorten the life of any new reconstruction work.
Next Steps
Staff continues to support the 2014 proposed brick street maintenance and restoration/reconstruction policy. Direction on this policy will allow staff to begin a process to incorporate brick streets into our maintenance program more efficiently. We believe that current funding levels would need to be increased to allow for more brick street maintenance; however, the biggest obstacle to brick street maintenance is having a policy and direction.
Attached
Map - location, PCI and composition of brick streets
Table – brick street Class, PCI, and composition by block