Village Presents Report on Road Conditions and Repaving Program

You’re not imagining it. The reason it feels like so many roads are being repaved in Scarsdale is because this year, the village, county and state repaved a record amount of roads, more mileage than in any year in recent memory.

A study of the road resurfacing program presented at Village Hall on Tuesday October 9 showed that for the 2017/18 calendar year 6.17 miles of road ways were repaved. This includes 1.21 miles funded with $304,650 by Con Edison who is now required to pay for curb to curb repaving of any roads they disrupt when installing new gas lines.

In addition to the Village’s increased spending, this year Scarsdale saw the resurfacing of county and state roads such as the Post Road and Weaver Street, underwritten by the state and the county, with no impact to our local budget.

But even with this uptick in spending, a good portion of Scarsdale’s 79 miles of roadways remain in need of repair.

In 2017 the village hired engineers to do a complete conditions assessment of our roads.

They concluded the following:

15% or 11.53 miles were in excellent condition

35% or 28.41 miles were in good condition

41% or 31.78 miles were in fair condition

9% or 7.79 miles were in poor condition

At the meeting, Village Engineer David Goessl explained that the cost to resurface a road is $250,000 per mile, making it $1,250,000 to repave five miles of road. The village also spends $500,000 per year on curb restoration and another $250,000 per year on repairs and patching. The NYS Department of Transportation CHIPS program (Consolidated Highway Improvement Program) reimburses the village $500,000 per year so the cost to repave 4-5 miles per year, continue the curb restoration program and do routine maintenance the would be $1,500,000.

If the village maintains this level of spending for the next five years, by 2023 all roads rated as “poor” would be repaired and the amount of “fair” roads, now about 30 miles, would be reduced to 16.1 miles. However, the $1.5 million annual spend would not bring all roads up to Good or Excellent condition.

Village engineers also presented a second, more aggressive scenario that would bring all village roads up to Good or Excellent condition in the next five years. Under this scenario, the Village would spend $2,167,000 per year and resurface 6.67 miles per year. They explained that it is not practical to do more that 6.67 miles per years for a host of reasons. Among them are:

-Paving can only be done in the four warmest months of the year

-It is best to repave when school is out and school buses are not travelling on Village roads.

-The Village competes with out local municipalities for contractors who repair roads at the same time of year.

-The Village does not have a dedicated staff person to manage paving.

The presentation was made in advance of the budget planning cycle so that trustees could prioritize needs and consider roads within the context of other Village budget items.

Whether they decide to allocate $1.5 million or $2,167 million, they will vastly increase spending on road repairs which hovered at only $300,000- $400,000 per year for 2008 to 2014 when the village was only repaving about 1.5 miles per year. Trustees attribute this lack of spending in the past to the current state of the roads.

So the next time you’re stuck in traffic due to road construction or required to detour to get around paving crews, rather than be annoyed, appreciate the fact that your roads are being repaired and you’ll have a better ride in the months to come.

Wondering how your road compares? Look up the condition of your road here: