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This year infrastructure
is on everyone’s radar, from
Washington D.C. to Sacramento.
In January, President Trump said
infrastructure was a national
priority worthy of a $1 trillion
investment, and Vice President
Pence echoed this assertion to
the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Governor Brown renewed his
commitment to California’s
infrastructure in his State of
the State address. We heard the
speeches, but how will
they impact us?
Infrastructure is a massive,
complex and interdependent
system that provides mobility,
clean water, electricity and other
essentials of modern society.
The better we understand the
needs, the more effective we are
in creating the solutions. Please
join gmh TODAY as we look
at infrastructure in our region
through a four-part series, starting
with our Streets and Roads.
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very day, more than
100,000 Morgan
Hill, Gilroy and San
Martin residents
drive cars, board buses, take
kids out in strollers, walk
dogs, and jog or bike along local
streets and roads. We want our roads
smooth and clearly marked, with level
and well-lit sidewalks and street signs that
are easy to see.
As taxpayers, we rely on our local
officials to manage the care and funding
of our streets and roads, and they make
an effort to inform and engage us in
that process with meetings, reports and
surveys. In 2017, our cities each face a
backlog of deferred maintenance and
gaps between needs and funding to meet
those needs. They also have to balance
maintenance needs with large-scale, “one
time” capital improvement projects, but
that’s a subject for another time.
We pay taxes,
why can’t we fix the roads?
We are shifting to more fuel-efficient and
alternative fuel vehicles, which is good
for the environment. . .not so good for
gas tax revenues. On top of this, the State
Board of Equalization has reduced the gas
tax by more than ten cents per gallon over
the past several years. South County roads
are aging while our single-largest funding
source for maintenance is shrinking. This
has contributed to a formidable backlog
of deferred maintenance.
While we enjoy certain quality of
life advantages, Gilroy and Morgan Hill
currently generate among the lowest
per capita tax revenues of Santa Clara
County’s 15 cities. We’re making solid
progress to change this through economic
development, but it takes time. We
pay hefty property taxes, but for every
$10,000 property tax bill, less than
$1,000 goes to the city of residence. We
pay 8.5 percent state sales tax, but our
cities only collect one of every 8.5 pennies
on the dollar. It takes one heck of a lot of
spending to generate real dollars to patch
and pave our roads in addition to paying
for police and fire and other services.
Rules of the Road
Historically, the state’s transportation
funding decisions were based on
population and total miles of roadways.
Impacts such as climate, traffic loads
and volumes, construction materials and
age weren’t factored in. It wasn’t until
2008 that the condition and needs of
California’s local street and road systems
were studied in comprehensive detail.
Today, local and state agencies use a
Pavement Condition Index (PCI) and
Pavement Management software programs
to analyze large volumes of PCI data
and make informed decisions about
funding, construction, maintenance and
rehabilitation of our roads.
Every two years, the cities of Morgan
Hill and Gilroy each conduct an
engineering survey of the condition of
their roads, interpret the data in software,
and prepare a Pavement Management
Report to share with local residents as
well as county and state transportation
agencies. The bottom line? The rate at
which roads deteriorate accelerates over
time, and it costs far less to maintain
roads in good condition than bad. If we
want our city leaders to be wise stewards
of our local infrastructure, we need
to support their call to invest early to
maintain local roads more cost-effectively
at a higher average PCI.