Title
Consider/Discuss/Act on an Ordinance Amending the Fiscal Year 2023-2024 Annual Budget and Amending the 2024-2028 Capital Improvements Program to Provide Funds for Pavement Marking Maintenance Project (TR2468)
Summary
COUNCIL GOAL: Operational Excellence
(2A: Balance available resources to accommodate the growth and maintenance needs of the city)
MEETING DATE: April 16, 2024
DEPARTMENT: Development Services / Engineering
CONTACT: Shelley Lang, P.E., Assistant Director of Engineering
Gary Graham, P.E., Director of Engineering
RECOMMENDED CITY COUNCIL ACTION:
• Approval of the Ordinance.
ITEM SUMMARY:
• This Ordinance amends the Fiscal Year 2023 - 2024 Annual Budget and the 2024 - 2028 Capital Improvement Program to provide additional funding for the Pavement Marking Maintenance Project (TR2468) for a total increase of $1,200,000.
• Additional funding necessary for expanding the pavement marking maintenance program is available in the Streets Construction Fund balance.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
• Pavement markings are maintained by the Engineering Department’s signs and markings team. The current maintenance program is reactionary addressing pavement marking issues as they are found by either staff members or via phone calls or emails from motorists traveling in the city. Over the last three years, the transportation team has spent between $135,000 and $295,000 on faded or missing pavement markings brought to our attention. The goal of this increase in pavement marking maintenance program funding is to invest in the safety and efficiency of the city's roadways. This program will also help us maintain compliance with the pavement marking reflectivity levels as required in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) published by the Federal Highway Administration.
• With the launch of City Works, we now have a tool to put in place a better maintenance program. This will allow staff to track and measure the durability of pavement markings. Right now, we are using the manufacturer's guidance on how long pavement markings should last. The city's standard pavement marking material is thermoplastic, which has an estimated life span of 3 to 5 years. This new program would divide the city's 1,700 lane miles of roadways into five areas to create a maintenance program that would result in reinstalling pavement markings once every five years. It would also include remarking school zone pavement markings within each area, so these markings would also be refreshed at least once every five years.
• In the past few years, the City has also made a commitment to improve roadway maintenance by investing approximately $5 million in general fund dollars in the various maintenance activities. Likewise, we need to make a similar investment in the roadway pavement markings. Our estimate to implement this program will require an on-going maintenance cost of approximately $1.5M per year.
• As previously mentioned, the MUTCD has requirements to maintain certain reflectivity of roadway pavement markings. The MUTCD has established a compliance date of September 6, 2026, to implement and maintain a pavement marking program that is designed to maintain retroreflectivity of longitudinal pavement markings. Maintaining retroreflectivity levels for visibility at night of longitudinal markings is required on roadways with speed limits of 35 mph or greater. Longitudinal markings are double lines that indicate maximum or special restrictions (i.e. double yellow), solid lines that discourage or prohibit crossings (i.e. center or edge lines), and broken lines that indicate permissive conditions (i.e. skip lines). In addition to the retroreflectivity, the MUTCD is also recommending that pavement marking lines on streets with speed limits of 40 mph and higher to widen these longitudinal markings from 4 inches to 6 inches. A reason for this change is to better accommodate autonomous vehicles while also benefiting human drivers by increasing their visibility. TxDOT has already adopted this into their standards. Therefore, the transportation team is also updating our standards to widen longitudinal markings from 4 inches to 6 inches as part of this program.
• The city's pavement marking work is done by a contractor via a fixed price contract. An annual pavement marking program may result in getting better contract pricing by having a reliable estimate of work needed to be completed each year.
• This budget ordinance amends the FY24 annual budget and the FY24-28 Capital Improvement Program by increasing the revenues for the FY 24 Pavement Marking Maintenance project (CIP Project TR2468) by $1,200,000.
FINANCIAL SUMMARY:
• This Ordinance amends the Fiscal Year 2023 - 2024 Annual Budget and the 2024 - 2028 Capital Improvement Program to provide additional funding for the Pavement Marking Maintenance Project (TR2468) for a total increase of $1,200,000.
• With this amendment, the total pavement marking maintenance program budget will increase from $300,000 to $1,500,000 ($300,000 in general funds and $1,200,000 in Streets Construction Fund balance).