Oak Park village trustees heard about the need for tens of millions in future infrastructure investment after a high-tech analysis of the village’s roadway conditions.
Consultants from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning shared an analysis of Oak Park’s pavement conditions with board members at its May 12 board meeting. The report gave village leaders a look into what the cost figures could look like to maintain the village’s roads, with the CMAP consultants recommending $5.7 million in annual pavement rehab project spending over the next 10 years to meet the village’s goal for improving the average pavement quality in Oak Park.
“What you don’t want to do, really is drop in condition, because we work with so many communities, and it’s very hard to get back up,” said CMAP Technical Lead Abbas Kachwalla.
The village allocates roughly $4 million to road preservation and resurfacing annually at present, according to village documents. But even just maintaining Oak Park’s current level of road quality would require an increase to $4.8 million in annual spending, according to CMAP.
Developing a strategy for how to pay for the next decade’s worth of projects will be the responsibility of the board’s finance committee this summer so it can be incorporated in next year’s village budget and capital improvement plan.
“This informs those discussions from the get go,” said Village President Vicki Scaman. “We’re going to have to roll our sleeves up and seek that $5.5 million to $6 million mark for streets, if not that $6.5 million mark.”
The consultants’ presentation followed a study of every block of public roadway in the village, with CMAP using laser-powered pavement quality analysis equipment attached to a van that drove every street. The study scored every block on pavement quality, finding that the road quality is considered “fair” on average, with 37% of Oak Park roads considered in “poor,” ‘very poor,” or “serious” condition.
Any full road reconstruction projects undertaken to improve pavement quality would present even more significant costs in Oak Park’s case. Any street replacement going forward will also likely require replacing the century old underground infrastructure that lie beneath most of the village, according to Village Manager Bill McKenna.
“We don’t often do full reconstructions on streets where we’re not doing water and sewer, because then we’re going to build a street on top of 100-year-old infrastructure,” McKenna said. “That street would outlast that infrastructure. The underground infrastructure would not last as long as that new roadway pavement. We’d be prematurely ripping up new road.
Pavement renovations would also likely come with additional costs tied to traffic safety improvements like curb bump outs required by the village’s “Vision Zero” plan, McKenna said.