During the 08/23/2021 Municipal Services Committee meeting, Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey gave a Road Reconstruction 101 presentation to the committee. She put it together after receiving some questions from alderpersons and thought that the community might have similar questions and find value in the presentation as well. [Honestly, it did answer a lot of questions. It was laid out very clearly, and the city’s weird obsession with mix-use apartments now seems a little less weird to me.]
One of the first questions the city gets asked is “How do you decide what projects get in the 5-Year Plan?” This question is especially relevant because they have more projects than they could every really fit into a 10-Year Plan.
The Department of Public Works uses 15 different criteria.
(1) Pavement Condition – They have a pavement condition rating for every block in the city of Appleton which is a 0-100 scale with 0 being the best condition and 100 being the worst. She showed a picture of Kimball Alley behind the Paper Valley Hotel. That alley is 63 years old and has a pavement condition rate of 48 which is one of the worst pavement condition ratings in the city. She noted they don’t really use the whole 100-point scale and that when a street is at 48 it’s in really poor condition. One of the worst streets with the highest condition rating in the city is Bates Street which is rated at 53. Alderperson Siebers mentioned that that is in his ward.
(2) Condition of Underground Utilities. Director Vandehey mentioned Summit Street which the committee was already familiar with. That street only had a 6′ water main. The current industry standard is an 8″ main. Additionally, the water main is almost 100 years old and the department knows it’s at the end of its life because it’s had 6 main breaks in the last 10 year which is a lot for Appleton.
(3) Intermunicipal Agreements. If there is state or county funding available, they obviously want to use that money, so they get those projects into the 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan. A recent example was the work that’s going on at a couple of the intersections at Northland Avenue which involve both Outagamie County and Grand Chute. They always try to put projects with cost-sharing into the 5-Year Plan.
(4) Projects To Maximize Use Of Equipment And Staff. The city of Appleton owns an asphalt paver which is convenient because, if there is a second of road that needs to be paved, they can send staff out quickly and have them pave it instead of having to rely on a contractor who might not be able to attend to it for a few months. The city also wants to make sure that they’re getting enough work out of that piece of equipment, so they always try to include some asphalt paving projects in the 5-Year CIP.
(5) Streets With High Ongoing Maintenance. Before Prospect Avenue was paved last year, the city couldn’t keep up on the maintenance. Every day people were calling in pot hole reports. this was especially problematic in the spring when a lot of freezing and thawing happens. They always try to get those really high maintenance streets into the 5-Year Plan.
(6) Projects Associated With Safety Improvements. These would be projects that involved things such as enhanced pedestrian crossings which she thought was a popular program.
(7) Available Funds In Each Budget. They have multiple funds/budget targets within funds. They have a budget target within the general fund, the TIF plan, borrowed projects, and sanitary, storm, and water. A project that’s in the TIF plan gets paid for out of TIF money not out of the general fund. Likewise, they couldn’t take a project for a street that’s in poor condition but not in a TIF and pay for it out of TIF funds. Sometimes people wonder why one street is being worked on when there is another street in worse condition that is not being worked on, and the answer might be that the city is waiting for the appropriate funds to pay for that street.
(8) Projects That Can’t Have Their Life Extended Though Enhanced Maintenance. Once an asphalt base is worn out or a concrete street starts losing its joints, there’s not much more that can be done to save that street. Those streets will result in perpetual maintenance so they try to get them into the 5-Year Plan.
(9) Coordination With Adjacent Development Projects. She showed a picture of Franklin Street. A person might look at Franklin Street and wonder why it was getting attention ahead of other streets that are in much worse condition. This was another example of a street that needs underground utility work. It has a 6″ water main originally installed in 1913. That is the water main that the library needs to connect to, but the library needs a main that is larger than 6″, so that is why the timeline for the Franklin Street project was moved up–not because of the pavement condition but because of the underground utilities.
(10) Proximity To Major Multimodal Generators (schools, hospitals, downtown, etc). A project downtown might have a higher priority than a cul-de-sac in a residential neighborhood as would projects next to schools. They often prioritize higher traffic roads over lower traffic roads.
(11) Spreading Projects Throughout The Community. They do this for two reasons: (1) Fairness. They try to perform some kind of reconstruction project in each area of the city. (2) Spreading out the projects also spreads out the traffic impact. If all of the projects were in one neighborhood it would be very difficult to get in and out of that neighborhood during the construction.
(12) Projects Eligible For Wheel Tax Funding. Only reconstruction projects are eligible for wheel tax funding—not new subdivisions. The city always has to make sure that they have enough reconstruction projects in the 5-Year CIP so that they can appropriately allocation the money collected from the wheel tax.
(13) Projects Associated With Expansion Of Multimodal Opportunities/Urbanization. Director Vandehey did not go into detail about this, but the presentation included a picture of County Highway JJ next to North High School.
(14) Funding From Other Sources Such As LRIP With Local Share Component. The Local Road Improvement Program (LRIP) is a state program that provides funding for roads. If the city has a street that meets the program criteria, they will get the state funding, but there will be a local share also that they have to pay. For a $500,000 project, the city might only have to pay $100,000. The city prioritizes putting projects with state funding in the 5-Year Plan.
(15) Smaller Projects That Can Utilize Every Last Dollar Of Available Funds. After they’ve gone through all the various available funding sources and set their project plans, the city might end up with a nominal amount of money left over such at $40,000. They’ll then try to find the smallest project that they can move into the 5-Year CIP so that they can use every last dollar available. That is the reason why the public might see a small alleyway being worked on before a street with a higher traffic volume.
She said that often a project fits into many of these categories as illustrated by the County Highway JJ project. Prior to the work the city did there, that area didn’t even include utilities so the city installed all of the underground utility work before doing this urbanization. There was also an intergovernmental agreement; Outagamie County paid for quite a bit of that project. There were safety improvements in the form of an enhanced pedestrian crossing. The project happened in coordination with other developments; North High School was doing an expansion and a Kwik Trip was being installed across the street. The project was also in proximity to the major multimodal generator of North High School, and the city added bike lanes and a shared use path. Overall, that project met 6 of the 15 different criteria that the city looks at for putting projects into the Capital Improvement Plan.
Before moving on to the next section of the presentation, Director Vandehey opened things up for question.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) asked if there was any sort of ranking for these 15 criteria or if the department simply looked at those issues and tried to figure out what projects they could fit in.
Director Vandehey answered that there were no rankings. They do really try to start with number 1 and number 2—the condition of the pavement and the underground utilities—but there are other factors such as if they got state funding for a project that was only good for 2 years. She noted that the library project had also impacted their decisions. All 15 of the criteria are taken into account and juggled.
She then moved onto the next section of the presentation which was about Concrete vs. Asphalt.
There are pros and cons to each type of pavement and the city does not have a favorite even though sometimes people think that they do.
Pros for concrete: longer life, less repair and maintenance over time, fewer weight limitations, better repairs when panel replacement is needed for underground utility work, better light reflection.
Cons for concrete: more costly upfront.
She noted that that difference in cost can really change based on what fuel prices are because quite a bit of petroleum is used to make asphalt products. The gap can be larger or smaller from year to year.
Pros for asphalt: Lest costly up front, cures more quickly (they’re usually opened up the next day instead of after a week like with concrete), better expansion and contraction.
Cons for asphalt: more susceptible to potholes and rutting.
Both concrete and asphalt have their uses and there’s not one that’s better or worse than the other; the city just has to decide where they should use them.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) said that he had an alley behind his house that was redone not too long ago in concrete rather than asphalt even though it had very little traffic. His feeling was that using concrete meant that the city was going to be one less headache for a longer period a time.
Director Vandehey said that there were a lot of factors they consider when determining if they should reconstruct a street with concrete or asphalt.
(1) Is this a partial or total reconstruction? With a total reconstruction, they would be taking up all the street and all the curb and gutter, whereas, with a partial reconstruction they might leave some of the curb and gutter. In fact, they try to avoid removing the curb and gutter if possible and are able to avoid doing that about 30% of the time. A partial reconstruction can only be done if there is a minimal amount of underground work because if a lot of underground work needs to take place, they will have to tear into the curb with all the trenches for the underground utilities.
(2) Can the street have an overlay instead of reconstruction? This would allow them to not rip up any of the curb or gutter, but they only do that if the underground utilities have some life left.
(3) What underground utilities need to be replaced as part of the project?
(4) If underground utilities are not being replaced, what useful life do they have remaining?
If there is a street that they think could have an asphalt overlay but the utilities only have 3 years of life they wouldn’t want to do that. And they certainly wouldn’t put concrete pavement on top of utilities that only have 10 years of life left.
If the utilities have about 20 years of life left than that would be perfect for an asphalt overlay because the road would be and the end of its life in 20 more year right in line with the end of the utilities’ life. They really try to marry up the end of life of the utilities with the end of life of the whatever pavement treatment they’re using.
(5) What is the traffic volume? They look at traffic volume, truck volume, and whether the street serves a residential, commercial, or industrial neighborhood.
(6) What is the width of the street or the alley? (Not listed on the slide).
If the road is too narrow it’s difficult for the city’s asphalt paving machine to get in there. Also, many of the alleys have a V-type drainage system that can’t be paved with an asphalt paver.
Alderperson Siebers was correct. About 10 or 15 years ago the city decided that if they started paving alleys in concrete, they would be done with them for 60-70 years because they have such little traffic volume.
They ask all these questions and then keep that pro/con list for the concrete and asphalt in mind and work on marrying together pavement and utilities in order to decide whether a street will be asphalt or concrete.
They do have some rules of thumb.
(1) All new subdivision streets will first be paved temporarily with asphalt, then the first permanent street will be concrete. That will allow them to get about 50 years out of that first permanent subdivision street. The next treatment might be an asphalt overlay for another 20-25 years at which point they would be getting close to the end of the useful life of those utilities. That illustrated how, long term, the city was trying to think about how to marry the pavement with the underground utilities.
(2) All alleys are concrete.
(3) Arterial and collector streets like College Avenue and Northland Avenue are concrete.
(4) State and County highways and all truck routes are concrete.
Beyond those givens, they always look at the particular situations and the life of the utilities to see whether concrete or asphalt would be better.
She thought that Appleton must be doing something right because they have quite a few streets in the city that are over 60 years old which was one of their metrics.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) asked if the Department of Public Works had started to do some sort of calculation of the environmental cost of asphalt vs. concrete. She saw the calculation of $500,000 per mile for a partial reconstruction, but did that factor in any sort of environmental considerations around using all of that petroleum. Was the city looking at any other alternatives other than just asphalt or concrete as a way to try to minimize some of the petrochemical impacts?
Director Vandehey said that what was listed on the next page was strictly what it cost to do the pavement. She also stressed that it was very general. She just put that together so that everyone could have an idea of the magnitude of different, but there were other considerations that could impact cost such as a whether it was a 4-lane road vs a 1 lane road or if there were a lot of intersections vs. a really long block, or if there as a roundabout or traffic signal intersections.
She said that whether they use concrete or asphalt, one of their goals is to recycle that material. She recounted a story about how, for one project, the city received complaints because the contractor was crushing concrete onsite and then using it for a base. A property owner on the street thought that they should have hauled the concrete offsite, crushed it, and then hauled it back. However, the city wanted to avoid having to spend additional fuel, so for a couple of days it was loud and there was dust in the neighborhood but there was a long-term beneficial impact to reusing that material onsite.
As far as asphalt streets go, many times a street can be asphalt milled and potentially repaved with those same millings. Regardless of which pavement type they use, they try to reuse that material the best they can.
As far as which product was more environmentally friendly, there’s a lot of different ways to look at that and it was not a huge factor in the decisions that the department made; although that was something they could talk about and look at more in the future.
They have definitely done a cost-benefit analysis. Concrete costs more upfront but it also lasts a lot longer which means it’s not being worked on as much; doing less maintenance could be environmentally friendly. She noted that there were a lot of different ways to look at it and there are papers arguing both ways for which type of pavement was more environmentally friendly.
Director Vandehey then moved on to page 7 of the presentation. The big question is “How are road construction projects funded?” She said that the slide mistakenly listed this breakdown for 2020 projects but it was actually for 2021 projects. In 2021 they had about $9 million worth of projects. 7% of those costs were paid for with property taxes, 13% with the wheel tax, and 80% with borrowed funds.
She said that each year that pie looked a little different because some years the city will have federal or state grant money, like when they did South Oneida Street. That was around an $8 million project of which the state and federal funds paid 80%. The pie chart for that year would have looked very different.
The city does also get general transportation aid which is money from the vehicle licenses and fuel taxes that the state gives each municipality. The city can use that general transportation aid money in a lot of different ways. How that shows up depends on how the budget it put together. There are also TIF districts. In 2021 Appleton didn’t have any TIF projects as reflected on the chart, but, again, every year the pie could look a little different.
She then moved on to “How has funding changed over the years?” The chart presented was just a snapshot of two different years which showed a trend that was heading in the wrong direction. The first pie chart was from 2005. That year 86% of Appleton’s street reconstruction projects were paid for out of the operating budget and 14% was through debt. 15 years later in 2020 that ration was just about reversed. 21% was paid for out of the operating budget and 79% was paid for with debt.
That was not sustainable for two main reasons.
1. There are other projects that also need to be borrowed for, such as the library or Parks and Recreation projects.
2. Just like with personal budgets, the more that is borrowed the more money ends up going to pay off that deb. So, one really ends up having less money to live on because more of that money is going to pay of that credit card so to speak.
They city wants to try to find a way to stop that trend. They might never be able to get back to the 2005 ration, but they need to get closer to that than to the 2020 ratio.
There were a number of ways they could reduce borrowing for road reconstruction. She noted that there was not a great answer, but they needed to do something if they wanted to lower the amount that they were borrowing.
1. Do fewer projects. They would then have to borrow less money. In fact, the next 5-Year Plan that was going to be submitted for Council review was going to include fewer street projects
2. Increase the wheel tax.
3. Reduce or eliminate other services. If they got rid of the Health Department, for example, that would result in $1 million that they could use toward streets. She said that was obviously not a good answer but it was put on the slide because it was an option.
4. Bring back special assessments. For any alderperson that served during the special assessments debate, that also was not a very good answer but it was an option.
5. Create a transportation utility. That would allow them to find another way to fund projects.
6. Try to increase the state and federal funds. They already go after any state and federal funds that they think their projects are eligible for. Sometimes they are awarded funds and sometimes they aren’t. There is a possibility that additional funds will be available with the federal infrastructure bill.
She pointed out that the Council could do a combination of those options, but she didn’t think there was a perfect solution and a lot of those idea were probably really bad ideas but she wanted to put them on the slide because they are options. [My personal inclination after viewing this presentation would be to investigate a transportation utility further and look into trimming some of the city departments while also trying to get as much state and federal funding as possible.]
She then opened things up for questions.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) was not a member of the committee but he was present and asked a number of questions. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, his microphone didn’t pick his voice up very well so I don’t know exactly what those questions were.
His first question sounded like it had something to do with the changes in funding from 2005 to 2020 and whether it was an apples-to-apples comparison.
Director Vandehey said those were just snapshots of two years, but she could probably add to it the amounts of the budgets that year such as if one year had a $2 million budget and the other year had a $10 million budget. She didn’t think those two years were particularly different. She said she could also pick a year that was in the middle as well.
Alderperson Schultz said something about wanting to see the progression over the years. He then went on to ask about what was the end of a street’s life and the utilities’ life and what benchmarks determined that.
Director Vandehey answered that when they look at the useful life of the underground utilities they think of that as 75 years. However, they do have utilities that are older than that. Watermain breaks are influenced by the material of the main. There were years when the city used ductal iron, and ductal iron fails more than the material that the city used 100 years ago. At some point, the city must have figured out that they should wrap the ductal iron to protect it from Appleton’s corrosive soil, and those wrapped ductal iron pipes have a longer life. In general, though, they think of the life as being 75 years.
In a perfect world, they would start with concrete pavement and hopefully get 50 years out of that, then do an asphalt overlay and maybe get another 20 years, then if they haven’t had any watermain breaks and everything looks good, they could do a milling overlay and get another 10 or 15 years. That would marry up well with the underground utilities. But it really depends on the age of the underground utilities and what materials they used.
Now the city uses plastic pipes. They thing that won’t be an issue for 100 years, but they don’t know that because they have not been using that plastic pipe for that long.
It sounded like Alderperson Schultz said something about Summit Street.
Director Vandehey said they definitely look at the number of watermain breaks. Often times staff will push for a certain street to be reconstructed due to recurrent issues. Currently Capital Drive is having issues and they’ve had to fix multiple water main breaks, but Capital Drive is not in the 5-Year Plan. That water main might be 50 years old, but they’re getting all these breaks, so at some point they can’t keep patching that water main or the street. At some point they have to figure out how to fit as street like that into the plan. Although the condition of the underground utilities figures into their calculations, even if a pipe had had no breaks, if it’s 90 years old, they would never put brand new pavement over it without replacing the utilities first.
Alderperson Siebers asked if she had explained why there were fewer streets in the upcoming budget.
Director Vandehey said it was due to the competition for the borrowing funds. Borrowing money for the library will result in a two-year reduction in streets that they can borrow for.
Alderperson Fenton said she could remember at least a couple of projects that they put off because there was no bid within the city’s budget. She wondered if it would be useful to factor in inflation on the materials, building projects, etc. They know what the city’s levy limits are, and it’s clear that inflation on these projects is exceeding their ability to expand their funds for these projects. She wondered if there was some way to fit inflation into the equation somehow.
Director Vandehey said that when they do bids for concrete paving, they will then have a new cost of concrete number that they will then use to update the next year’s numbers including expected inflation. They will then increase it accordingly for the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that. So, the cost of 100 feet of concrete paving during the 5th year of the 5-Year Plan will be different than that of the 1st year because they will have an inflation rate built in. Also, every year once they open bids, they readjust those numbers.
Alderperson Fenton said she thought she understood that. But what she was trying to understand is that they know the rate of inflation has far exceeded the city’s funds and how much it is allowed to collect. She didn’t think that the issue the city was facing with funding road maintenance was the result of having gone crazy with spending and borrowing between 2005 and 2020. Rather, it was the fact that the city’s revenue is essentially frozen by the levy limit and other factors, but the cost of these projects keeps increasing which the city can’t control.
Director Vandehey agreed that there was no one to blame for how that funding moved so much to borrowing and thought Alderperson Fenton was correct. There are many things that are out of the city’s control. Until someone could change the state levy limit or stop inflation or have more contractors to do the work, they were going to have to figure out how to deal with this issue.
She noted that one of the things they were talking about internally was that, although they loved the idea of federal infrastructure money, if all that money gets released, there will not be enough contractors or enough labor to do the work. The result will be more projects than people can bid on which will not help the city get competitive bids. They might end up getting fewer projects done with the same amount of money because that money is just not going to go as far if they don’t get good competitive bids.
Alderperson Firkus asked how land use factors into how much the city has to maintain and how many roads have to be reconstructed. He understood that when the city designs a road, they don’t get to decide what the usage will be, but wondered if, regarding the city’s growth on the north and south sides, if there were ever conversations about how that growth was going to have a maintenance bill associated with it in 50-75 years.
Director Vandehey said that the previous Director of Public Works before she started had been tasked by the mayor to look at that. He showed that, although new growth is good, it doesn’t really pay for itself, especially when it’s residential growth. New subdivisions don’t pay for themselves. Commercial development does pay for itself, and then there are business that are in between. She thought that was why land use maps now show a combination of uses. It can’t just be all single-family properties because if the city did all that growth, it would almost be a loss. IT would be great that people were moving into the community. In addition to paying taxes, they would be a workforce that the city needed. At the same time, single-family development really doesn’t pay itself in terms of the maintenance that is required. That is why the city really tries to get as dense development as possible. That’s an ongoing struggle, but the denser the population the better the payback is. Are they maintaining 100 feet of street for one single-family house or for an apartment that has 8 families? That was definitely taken into consideration but obviously not to the point of the city saying they were not going to support new subdivisions. [I’ve always kind of wondered why the city was so enamored of mixed-use developments, and I guess this probably explains it.]
Alderperson Firkus agreed that no one could ever really lobby for that, but he did wonder how different uses of land impacted the city’s expenses.
Alderperson Siebers asked if the initial asphalt roads laid down in new subdivisions were paid for by the city or by the developer.
Director Vandehey said that the developer pays for it until it’s part of a development agreement. Sometimes the developer works out an agreement to, for example, give the city 4 acres that they need for a stormwater pond if the city doesn’t charge for the temporary asphalt.
Alderperson Siebers confirmed that a concrete street was put down in new subdivisions after the temporary asphalt. He said it had been an issue in the past that they would put down asphalt and people didn’t understand why it was redone with concrete when the asphalt was still good.
Director Vandehey said that development agreements usually call for concrete to be put in when the subdivision is 75% built up or at least 7 years old. When the concrete goes in then that concrete is special assessed at 100% to the property owners.
There were no further questions.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=859289&GUID=7D6E6CFE-3095-4DF5-A27C-E22A66C9F01E&Options=info|&Search=
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