[Archived] City of Alexandria to Survey Pavement Conditions to Prioritize Street Maintenance

For Immediate Release: March 29, 2016

The City of Alexandria is conducting a triennial survey of pavement conditions to prioritize road paving and resurfacing resources.  Each street will receive an objective score ranging from 1 (worst) to 100 (best), which will be used to create a Pavement Condition Index (PCI).  The PCI is used to rank street segments according to need and create a maintenance schedule as part of the City’s Capital Improvement Program.

This year’s PCI survey will be conducted by Dynatest, a City contractor specializing in pavement engineering testing and consulting.  A state-of-the-art vehicle will perform a semi-automated evaluation of pavement conditions, using video cameras, laser sensors, profiling devices, GPS, and other measurements to calculate a PCI score for each street segment.  Residents may notice this vehicle on public streets for the next two weeks.

The City is responsible for maintaining more than 560 lane miles of streets.  While many streets are in good condition, others have deteriorated as a result of wear, extreme weather, and deferred maintenance.  Paved roads – especially those with heavy truck traffic and in urban areas such as Alexandria – should be resurfaced every eight to 12 years in order to maintain a good quality surface. The Commonwealth of Virginia provides limited funding for roadway resurfacing based on a formula derived from the total lane miles of paved roadway within the city. This funding also supports concrete curb and gutter work, asphalt patching and localized repair and engineering studies.  The City must carefully prioritize these and other funds to maintain streets in a fair and equitable manner.

For more information about street paving, visit  alexandriava.gov/PublicWorks.

For media inquiries, contact Andrea Blackford, Senior Communications Officer, at andrea.blackford@alexandriava.gov or 703.746.3959.