Press Releases

For Immediate Release

MTC Honors Cities, Counties for Pavement Quality Achievements

Contact:

Theresa Romell, 510.817.5772
John Goodwin, 510.817.5862

Oakland, Calif., July 21, 2005…Three Bay Area municipalities and a trio of public employees are scheduled to receive kudos for their street smarts next Monday, when the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)’s Pavement Management Program presents its awards for outstanding achievement in local street and road maintenance for 2004-05. Contra Costa County has earned recognition for the “Best All Around” pavement management program in the region, based on the consistent high quality of streets and roads in the unincorporated areas of the county. The “Best Bay Area Roads” award — which goes to the municipality with the highest overall Pavement Condition Index (PCI) score — is to be bestowed upon the eastern Contra Costa County city of Oakley, while the city of Petaluma in Sonoma County will be recognized as having the “Most Improved Roads” in the Bay Area.

“There are about 19,000 miles of local streets and roads in the Bay Area,” explained MTC chair Jon Rubin. “Taking care of them is an enormous job and one that’s made harder by chronic funding shortfalls. But the people who actually do the job and do it well rarely get the credit they deserve. Pavement maintenance is one of those areas where notice usually is taken only when the job doesn’t get done.”

MTC uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure pavement quality, and assigns a “very good” rating for PCI scores of 75 or higher. Oakley’s streets and roads had an average PCI score of 87 for the reporting period covered by MTC’s State of the System 2004 report. Petaluma, which tied with Half Moon Bay for last place on the Bay Area’s pavement quality list in the 2003 report with a score of 48, raised its PCI score to 64 a year later.

Petaluma City Councilmember and MTC Commissioner Pamela Torliatt attributed the 16-point jump to a comprehensive strategy Petaluma has adopted for addressing its infrastructure needs. “Petaluma can trade in its previous title of ‘Pothole Capital of the Bay Area’ for a new crown as ‘Home of the Region’s Most Improved Roads.’ If we keep up our commitment, we could challenge Oakley for the top spot in a few years.”

The “Best All Around” is a new award category for 2004-05, and is determined not only by PCI scores but also by the city’s or county’s level of investment in pavement maintenance, its use of cost-effective pavement management practices, and the consistency of its pavement conditions over time. Unincorporated Contra Costa County recorded a PCI score of 86 (tied with the city of Santa Clara and second only to Oakley) in the State of the System 2004 report, and has ranked in the top five ever since MTC began ranking pavement conditions in the Bay Area’s 109 separate jurisdictions.

“County decision makers have made maintaining the road network a top priority and we’ve backed that up with sufficient funding,” noted Contra Costa County Supervisor and MTC Commissioner Mark DeSaulnier. “We also have a highly skilled and experienced pavement management team that knows how to get the most out of each dollar.”

In addition to the awards for Contra Costa County, Oakley and Petaluma, MTC ‘s pavement management staff recognized current or former employees of three Bay Area cities for their contributions to smoothing the ride for motorists and bicyclists. Rick Moshier of the City of Santa Rosa, who chairs MTC’s Local Streets and Roads Committee, was named the Local Streets and Roads Most Valuable Player for 2004-05; John Lisenko who recently retired from the City of Foster City, was named a Streets and Roads All Star; and John Barron, who is preparing to retire after a long career with the City of Fremont, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

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