ND North News

Approximately 70 percent of Minot’s roads are in satisfactory or good condition, according to the latest pavement review done by a firm hired by the City of Minot.

The information was presented to the City Council on June 5 by City Engineer Lance Meyer and Sadaf Khosravifar, a senior project manager for IMS Infrastructure Management Services, a firm hired by the City to conduct the pavement study.

According to information presented to Council, Minot has a satisfactory overall condition index of 76, with about 40 percent of our paved roads with an OCI below 75. Other findings include:

-29.2 percent of roads are in good condition

-40.7 percent of roads are in satisfactory condition

-20 percent of roads are in fair condition

-6.9 percent of roads are in poor condition

-3.1 percent of roads are in very poor condition

“We want to help the public understand that we may have some pavement that is in good condition, but it doesn’t ride very well,” City Engineer Lance Meyer said. “We can do other treatments to address that, like leveling, micro-sealing and mill and overlays. But I think it’s important to understand that if the expectation from the public is they want the rideability to be as high as it can be, then that’s going to increase our pavement budget because a chip seal isn’t going to take care of that rideability issue. It’s going to seal the surface and protect it, but it’s not going to take the unevenness out of the pavement.”

To fix all roads, the survey projected a cost of $101.2 million over the next five years to achieve an OCI of 85 with zero backlog. The City has steadily increased the budget for road projects in recent years, and currently budgets approximately $8 million toward road improvements.

To achieve the OCI target of 80, the data suggests the City increase its budget to $16.7 million a year for the next five years, targeting a final OCI of 80 with a backlog of only 12 percent. If the current level of funding is maintained, the OCI after five years would stay at roughly 76, with a backlog of 24 percent.

“What we’ve had to do in Minot for so long is patch, and patch, and patch, and every time you do that it creates a bump or an unevenness,” Meyer said. “In a municipality, there are always manholes, gate valves, and valley gutters that you have to work around, and that’s a constant no matter where you’re at in the country.”

In addition to the data collection van that collects surface defects, a structural survey was done on arterial and collector roads with FastFWD, a state-of-the-art non-destructive tool that performs structural testing. The purpose of the testing is to assess the load-carrying capacity of a roadway pavement to assess the remaining service life of the pavement and to determine the best rehabilitation strategy.

Original source can be found here