Farnsworth Group presents PAVER report to Lincoln City Council

[January 31, 2018] 

LINCOLN

On Tuesday, January 23rd, at the Lincoln City Council Committee of the Whole, aldermen heard about the city’s PAVER report from Joe Adams and Scott McDonald of Farnsworth Group.

In 2017, the city contracted Farnsworth to utilize the Pavement Management Assessment and Modeling System commonly referred to as PAVER. The assessment was then to yield an outline of the condition of city streets and roads and offer a guide for future projects.

McDonald and Adams were introduced by Gary Davis of Farnsworth, then the presentation was turned over to McDonald, who specializes in the PAVER program.

McDonald said that the challenge for his team was to assess the streets and determine condition of each segment (generally, the distance between two intersections), and what to do to improve or maintain that particular segment. The PAVER program is designed to address that challenge by cataloging all the segments and calculating the condition according to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) specifications.

With the proper calculations, McDonald said, the city could then utilize the PAVER to design short-term and long-term plans and goals.

According to McDonald, the PAVER program uses a “life cycle” approach that determines how long a street should last based on its construction, and offer a guide as to the most cost effective time to do maintenance. He said that by doing maintenance at the optimal time, the city will be able to save money and stretch their street repair budget further.

To get the process started, a kick-off meeting had been held with city street department personnel and Farnsworth. The group had looked at the current “street inventory” and the work history, then had moved into doing visual inspections.

Joe Adams then reviewed the PAVER results with the council. He presented a map of the city that was color coded as well as keyed with the grade or overall score for each segment of each street assigned by PAVER.

The lower scores or grades indicated the greater need for repair or replacement. Adams said the city had a backlog of work that needed to be done, and if it were able to get that backlog caught up the total cost would be more than $22 million. The recommendation of the PAVER program was that the city should focus on the lower scores, and any street that had a score of 43.36 or higher should be set aside for future projects.

The representatives from Farnsworth also explained that as the city completed work, data would need to be updated within the PAVER program so a new grade could be established for the street or segment.

Michelle Bauer asked if the city staff had received the training to do the data collection in house for PAVER. Adams said that staff had been trained and were prepared to do data collection.

Bauer also wanted to know if the PAVER report would provide street condition predictions for multiple years at one time. Adams said that was possible. With a prediction over multiple years, the PAVER can tell the city how quickly a street is deteriorating and the best time to address a specific street or segment. This tool will help the aldermen determine which projects to set aside when dealing with budget constraints.

Steve Parrott wanted to know if the report would be available to the public as well as easily accessible by city officials. Adams said the data could be provided to the public and city. He also told the council that the map and scoring can be incorporated into the Logan County GIS program, so it would become an added layer in that county managed program.

Parrott asked Street Superintendent Walt Landers if the PAVER had produced any surprising results. Landers said, yes, it had produced a few surprises. He went on to say one of the most surprising factors had been in the verification of the streets versus data already on hand. He explained that the verification showed a number of streets that the width, for example, did not match up between current data and the physical measurements.

Ron Keller asked how often the physical verification of street conditions would need to be completed. McDonald said that he would recommend every two to three years. Landers said he thought the plan would be to do complete reviews every three to five years.

Rick Hoefle asked Landers if he thought the PAVER report would be more useful than the five-year road plan he has been working with. Landers said it would be much more useful because it is a “living program” whereas the five-year plan was nothing more than a piece of paper. With the living program, updates to the data can be made and new predictions can be made on a regular basis.

Hoefle wanted to know if Landers had the ability to manage the program. Landers said he had not yet had the training to do so, but was hopeful that would be forthcoming, then, yes, he would be able to manage the program.

Bauer asked if the predictions and the program would permit Landers to select ‘multiple treatments’ on a single year. In other words could Landers designate individual projects as oil and chip, micro-surfacing, or other options. Landers said that it could.

Heidi Browne said she understood that the field training had been completed for city staff, but would the program management training also be done. Joe Adams with Farnsworth said that was an option available to the city. He went on to say that the current report and data base had been constructed with “public software,” but if the city wished to purchase the software, Farnsworth could “make that happen.”

The city council may approve the PAVER report at the next voting session. If so, it will then be available during the budgeting process to determine the street work that will be done in 2018.

[Nila Smith]