Roads in the City of Warsaw are below average, but with the Common Council’s consent Monday night to apply for grant funding, Public Works Superintendent Jeff Beeler wants to begin improving the city streets. He gave the council a presentation last night on his department’s asset management plan for the city streets, which is part of the requirement of the Indiana Department of Transportation Local Road and Bridge Matching Grant Fund. The plan requires the city to rate its streets and then use that information as it receives the matching grant dollars, Mayor Joe Thallemer told the council. Beeler said he’s been working on the Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating (PASER) study for the city streets for a few months. It is a scale that is accepted by INDOT. The study is 74 pages long and will be submitted to INDOT, and it covers “every single road, section by section” in the city where it’s been graded. “The purpose of this report is to go through and grade all of Warsaw’s roads so you know where you’re at,” Beeler said. PASER system visually evaluates the condition of the road segments and rates each segment on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the worst condition and 10 being excellent. PASER recommends needed maintenance and repair based on the condition of the roadways based on inspections, he said. After the inspection was done, Beeler said, “Our average rating is a 4, so we’re slightly below average. We are on a slowly degrading trend since 2005. It is slowly going downward, so we’re hoping to stall that process and move the (ratings) in the other direction.” In the past, he said his department has just always “milled and filled” the roads, which was the “gold standard.” “We have to realize that we can not afford to do that any longer to have a successful road program. That is definitely a tool that we have to use, that we need to do, but it can’t be the only thing that we do,” Beeler said. He said they need to do small amounts of repairs on roads here and there over a 30-year span rather than spending a large chunk of money every 10 years or so. The result, he said, is an increase in the life span of the roads with less money being spent. A lane mile is a mile of road that is 11 feet wide. There is a total of about 200 lane miles in the city. He said the city has 2.52 lane miles that are beyond the point of repair and would take reconstruction (PASER rating of 1), with a little over 4 lane miles that are rated a 2 that also need to be reconstructed. In the 3 and 4 PASER rated category, Beeler said the city has about 60 lane miles that could be in the mill and fill range with some additional patching. Trying to maintain those lane miles in categories 1-4 would cost $9 million but would slightly improve the ratings of the roads. The city also has about 37 lane miles of category 5, 32 of 6, 29 of 7, 13 of 8 or 9 and over 33.86 lane miles of category 10. It would cost about $1.4 million to maintain and slightly improve those lane miles. Beeler said he hopes to use the data in the future with budget forecasting so his department can use its money the best that it can. He said he’d like to see the city’s roads be an average PASER rating of 6, which would provide the motorists with a good driving conditions. He said he chose an average rating of 6 because with the current funding the street department has, anything higher is not attainable. “That would be an achieveable number that we could set forth to try to obtain. Anything higher than that, we can not reach at this point and time with our funding. Six is going to be difficult. To reach our roads to an average grade of 6 is going to be 10 years if we hit it very diligently,” Beeler said. Just to stabilize where the city’s roads are currently, he said it would need $10 million, and an additional $2 million for its alleys. Along with the road ratings, a five-year plan will be submitted to INDOT as part of a grant request. The funding would allow Beeler’s department to cover 106 lane miles, with most being preservation-type processes. If the city received $723,000 from the INDOT grant, Warsaw’s match would be $723,000 with $280,000 coming from the Wheel Tax; $83,000, from Motor Vehicle Highway fund; $130,000 from Local Roads and Streets; and $230,000 from the Local Option Income Tax. The five councilmen present at Monday’s meeting gave consensus for Beeler to apply for the grant funds from INDOT. Beeler said the application for the funding has to be submitted by the end of July with all of the city’s projects, and then awarding of the grant dollars by INDOT will be at the end of August. INDOT is allowing the money to be carried into 2017. Thallemer said the money is likely a one-shot deal and reminded council that state legislative leaders have pledged to look at road funding again next year. Because of Beeler’s work, the city is able to take advantage of the grant, Thallemer said. In other business, the council: • Approved resolutions waiving non-compliance of tax abatement deduction filings for Whimet and Milestone Technologies. • Heard a short presentation from Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Fire Chief Mike Wilson and Genesis Regional Manager Tim Grant on extrication equipment the fire territory recently purchased with funds the council approved in the 2016 budget. • Heard from Thallemer that the state Stellar Communities Committee will be in Warsaw from 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday. There will be a presentation, tour and question-and-answer session.
