Selectmen Review Present, Future Conditions of Town Roads

The town of Salem maintains 182 miles of roads, which are in very good condition on average, according to Engineering Director Robert Puff Jr.

The Board of Selectmen took a look at road data on Monday to determine how far the investment of $32.6 million in the town road system since 2004 has paid off.

According to Puff, one method of measurement is called the "pavement condition index," which scales the quality of a road from 0 being the worst and 100 being the best.

"In 2003, when the initial PCI study was done, the town average rating was 79 out of 100," said Puff. "The 2012 town wide average PCI value is 80."

Puff noted that the town has $55 million invested in the 10-year road program stretching to 2022, and that the projected average PCI value is expected to fluctuate between 81 and 82 during that time.

Selectman Stephen Campbell questioned whether the projected improvement will be worth the extra $23 million being invested over the next 10 years.

"When you throw 68 percent more money at something, to expect it to then only go from 80 to 81 (pavement condition index) didn't make any sense to me."

Puff noted that paving expenses go up as time passes through a 10-year period. Chairman Everett McBride, Jr. said that he expects that the increase in the average will be larger than 1 percent.

"We don't know until we actually do the work," said McBride.

Selectman Mike Lyons agreed with Campbell that the PCI average projection staying flat is "discouraging, but told his fellow board members not to get hung up on the numbers.

"I'll be the first one to tell you that you should be spending more money on roads, but I don't want you to get hung up that it's a bad thing that the PCI is level."

According to Campbell, one note in Puff's report said that it would taken an extra $2 million investment each year to get the PCI average up around 90.

Campbell also suggested that some portion of the road program every year should pick off the worst roads. He said he was surprised to look through the list and see that two roads had lower PCI's when compared to South Shore Road, which has gone before Selectmen.

He said the idea would be to avoid the situation where residents are coming to the town with citizens petitions.

"I think if we show people taht we're tweaking the criteria, they're willing to be somewhat more patient," he said.

Puff explained that one of the difficulties for the town's road committee is to figure out how best to allocate money to projects.

The board also briefly discussed sidewalks, agreeing that they are a different animal in the process that need to be looked at on a case by case basis. The specific goal would be to determine whether the sidewalk needs fixing in a particular area or if it is even needed at all.

Lyons said that in some cases, he would rather just see the town make the road wider.