Quick Take
Santa Cruz County's road network is in “fair” condition, according to its public works department. However, there is a large funding gap between the current budget for paving and what is needed to simply maintain conditions as the county braces for another tight budget in the upcoming fiscal year.
Santa Cruz County’s road network of about 1,165 miles of road is in “fair” condition, according to a report the county public works department presented to the board of supervisors Tuesday. The report warned that nearly $30 million per year is required to maintain current pavement conditions. That’s a significant sum with the county expecting another tight budget in the upcoming fiscal year.
The board unanimously approved a motion by District 1 Supervisor Manu Koenig that asked county staff to report back on potential revenue sources to fund work to maintain the current pavement conditions, while considering necessary storm damage and culvert repairs.
Civil engineers score road surfaces with the pavement condition index (PCI), a scale that runs from 100 (which means brand-new or just repaved) and 0 (which means the road requires total reconstruction). County civil engineer Casey Carlson said the average PCI for county roads is 57, which he described as “the lower end of the fair range,” and is below the statewide average of 65. He said the first road survey, in 1989, showed the county had a PCI of 80.
“We’ve been slowly losing ground over the years just because we haven’t had the funding we need to keep the pavement in its condition,” he said.
Carlson said county pavement funding primarily comes from grant programs and money from Measure D, a half-cent sales tax that funds local transportation projects that voters passed in 2016. That, combined with money allocated for road patching when needed, adds up to about $8.5 million invested in paving annually.
Unfortunately, Santa Cruz County will need a lot more money simply to maintain its roads’ “fair” status. According to forecasts from consultant Nichols Consulting Engineers, it would need about $29.5 million per year to keep the roads in their current condition: “At a budget of $8.5 million a year, we’re going to continue to see a [PCI] decline of a few points per year at that level.”
County public works director Matt Machado said state and federal grants are funded by gas taxes, which have stayed mostly flat in recent years as many drivers switch to electric vehicles and jurisdictions push to get people out of their cars and onto bikes or public transit, while road maintenance costs continue to rise with inflation. He said the department is looking for other funding opportunities at the state and federal levels, in addition to figuring out whether residents would support raising taxes to pay for road repairs.
Koenig said he was reluctant to lean on tax measures, and read comments from constituents complaining of poor road conditions and unhappy with raising taxes or other fees to get the work done.
”Roads always poll the highest and we use it to sell every one of these [tax] measures,” even when only a small fraction of the money raised actually goes to road repairs, Koenig said. “We are going to lose the trust of the voters and they’re simply going to stop approving new measures.”
Koenig advocated for using 10% of the county’s $250 million general fund on the most-needed road repairs this coming year, or at least studying what that allocation would look like.
“I don’t think we can afford it as a county,” said District 2 Supervisor Kim De Serpa, who otherwise said she generally agreed with Koenig’s assessment. “But I would like to see more money for roads, because I talk about it every single time we meet.”
“In a perfect scenario, allocating 10% of our budget towards roads may make sense, but there’s a bunch of competing priorities here,” like affordable housing, mental health, homelessness, and parks, District 3 Supervisor Justin Cummings said.
Koenig’s motion died on the floor after no supervisor seconded, so he put forward the other motion asking county staff for more input on potential sources of funding.
The county is bracing for a difficult financial situation due to anticipated funding cuts by the Trump administration, Cummings said. “We need to make sure that people understand that we are going to be very fiscally challenged just to keep our services that we have moving forward and afloat.”
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