Annual Roads Preservation Program

Project Updates

September 10 Update

The Annual Roads project has reached 95% completion.  We appreciate your patience throughout this construction season!

August 30 Update 

The City’s contractor made significant progress this week on the annual road work project. During the week of Aug. 30, the crews will focus work at the following areas:  Pleasant Beach Drive, Elizabeth Place, Henderson Road, and Euclid Avenue.

Project Overview

The City of Bainbridge Island maintains a 140-mile road network. Each year, the City invests an average of $650,000 to preserve and protect island roads. The budget includes $400,000 from Transportation Benefit Fund (TBF or car-tab fees) revenues, and the remainder is supported by the City’s Street Fund.

The 2021 road work will include grinding and patching (see list of locations on the map above). This technique provides a long-term fix for uneven pavement or other defects in the road and creates a smoother surface for driving. The pavement mix that will be used includes a mix of new and recycled on-site materials that meet Washington State Department of Transportation requirements for mix design.

Road Assessment
The City uses a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) and traffic volumes to rate the conditions of the road network and to determine where road maintenance will happen. The PCI ranks the overall health of a pavement segment on a scale of 0 to 100 (0 represents a failed street; 100 represents a new street). The PCI rating is determined by a visual inspection of pavement condition, age, and distress.

The City wants to maintain an average PCI score of 70, which is a condition in line with best management practices. As of May 2020, our average score was 62. The current score reflects the fact that many of our high-volume roads are in good shape, but many smaller low-traffic roads are in need of repairs. The City strives to keep the higher-volume roads from deteriorating while addressing smaller roads—and the associated neighborhood concerns— over the long-term.

The 2021-2022 biennial budget for annual roads addresses both high- and low-volume roads, using the overall PCI score of the roads as the primary driver for prioritization. The 2021 program will focus on more widely used roads with a pavement score of less than 40, and the 2022 program will focus on smaller roads with a pavement score of less than 25. The City’s last pavement condition report recommended spending a minimum of $1 million annually on pavement preservation.