Pecan Street in Pflugerville has seen deterioration from weather and use. The city of Pflugerville is establishing a new program to monitor streets’ conditions and evaluate which in the city need repair.[/caption]

Pflugerville is starting a new program in the coming months that will change the way the city monitors its streets’ and roadways’ conditions.

Assistant City Manager Tom Word said the city will contract with a company for a pavement evaluation and assessment project that will provide a numerical ranking system for all city streets in terms of condition.

“We have approximately 439 lane miles of pavement within the city of Pflugerville,” Word said. “So this consultant will go and measure the quality of every mile of those 439 miles of pavement and give us a report on the conditions.”

Councilman Wayne Cooper said the program is a preventive, long-term solution to maintaining Pflugerville’s streets.

“We have lots of streets and they need to be maintained,” Cooper said. “We don’t want to be one of those cities that puts [road maintenance off] until it’s too late, and the bill becomes overwhelming.”

Word said previously that road crews evaluated road conditions when they were sent out to repair potholes or fix cracks in the streets. Based on those conditions city staff would decide which streets needed repairs the most. He said when deciding which streets needed work city staff looked for undulations in the roadway, rutting in the wheel paths and cracking.

“You can grow to the point where that kind of management system doesn’t really do a good job,” Word said.

Word said the new pavement management system will be “much more comprehensive.” He said the new system will rank the streets in terms of their condition so maintenance funds can be applied to the streets that need it most.

Word said streets need repavement and work because of regular use and wear.

“It’s like painting your house,” he said. “If you have a house that has wooden siding on it and you never paint it, that’s probably fine the first year or the second year or the third year. But at some point you need to paint, or it will start really deteriorating.”

Word said if a street goes without repair long enough it will degenerate to the point that it essentially has to be rebuilt.

Cooper said transportation is one of the top three issues for the city.

“Transportation is a priority because people see it every day,” he said.

The new pavement management system is not the only way city leaders are addressing Pflugerville’s roadways. In November voters approved a $28 million bond related to transportation needs in the city.

Word said the bond mostly focused on expanding and building roadways, though in a couple of cases it addresses roads that are in such a state that they have to be rebuilt.

Kay Treon, a stay-at-home mother and recent University of Texas graduate, said when she moved from the west side of Pflugerville to the east side she noticed more deteriorating road conditions.

“Weiss [Lane] is awful,” she said. “All the trucks that drive on the road, I imagine the streets weren’t made for this.”

Evelyn Atkins, a Highland Park neighborhood resident, said she noticed cracking in her neighborhood, but the city fixed it quickly.

“I’m happy with the streets,” she said.

Word said the city sometimes hears from residents about the conditions of the streets.

“If there are potholes in the street we hear about it and rightfully so,” he said. “This program will allow us to better respond [to residents’ concerns] and maintain the roadways as best as we can.”

Word said pavement work will resume in the summer when the weather is hot and dry.