Street maintenance in Los Altos will be based on city council priorities of circulation safety and efficiency rather than a goal based on a statistical measurement.
City council members directed staff Feb. 13 to fix streets based on priorities outlined in the city’s Safe Routes to School program and Complete Streets Master Plan, rather than the previous goal of achieving a Pavement Conditions Index of 76 by 2027.
Municipalities use PCI, which indicates the general condition of a pavement section, to measure the performance of their road infrastructure and their levels of service.
The action was compatible with a staff recommendation to take a “holistic approach instead of only selecting streets to achieve a PCI number.”
Councilwoman Sally Meadows noted “not much improvement” in raising the PCI from the current 74 to 76.
“If you’re picking certain streets to bring them up to a certain level, you’re actually ignoring the streets that need deeper work,” she said. “And that’s why the deferred maintenance is growing, because we’re just doing the light stuff to keep the number to this goal. (With the new direction), they can measure PCI but they don’t have to manage to PCI. They can manage to safe streets.”
“Our streets can be better than they are right now,” said Mayor Jonathan Weinberg.
Weinberg raised the issue as he reviewed a staff report in preparation for the council’s Jan. 23 meeting.
“Where we are right now, I don’t think focusing on PCI is serving the city well,” he said. “Half of our streets could have an individual PCI of 100, half of them PCI of 50, and great, we have an overall PCI of 75 – isn’t that great, we’re all done. Of course, we’re not all done. The goal here isn’t to have PCI a certain number, it is to have good quality streets.”
Councilwoman Lynette Lee Eng offered some pushback, defending the direction of past councils by noting that their direction went beyond PCI. She also called for the execution of street maintenance to be done right the first time, citing examples like congested Jardin Drive behind Los Altos High School.
Councilwoman Neysa Fligor noted members of the city’s Complete Streets Commission had also raised the issue of taking a more holistic approach to prioritizing street repairs.
“This is the right direction for the city,” she said. “We can check off different goals, Safe Routes to School, accomplish things in our Complete Streets Master Plan, and at the same time, achieve a higher PCI.
“You should see and feel the improvement based on this approach versus how we were doing it before,” Fligor said. “Even without planning for this, this could get us to a higher PCI than 76.”
The council Tuesday unanimously approved Vice Mayor Pete Dailey’s motion to direct staff to manage maintenance based on council goals rather than PCI.
