Maintaining Performance Standards

Through the City’s street maintenance operation, the City has developed and maintains a Pavement Management Program (PMP). This program is designed to protect and extend the useful life of paved surfaces throughout the City. With careful planning and diligent effort, the goal is to maintain the highest performance standards while reducing the overall long-term costs of managing the City’s street infrastructure system.

As part of the PMP, the City utilizes CarteGraph, a specialized software application which allows staff to identify, inventory, and track the growth of the street system, its structural performance, and overall condition. Field inspections are used to rate the physical conditions of the street sections and are completed every three years.

Based on the information gathered from the field inspections, CarteGraph assigns an Overall Condition Index (OCI) ranging from 1 to 100 to identify surfaces most in need of improvements. Improvements can range from sealcoating to a complete reconstruction with utility upgrades.

Program Improvements

The following improvements are part of the City’s PMP:

• Pothole Patching - This is the temporary patching of potholes using hot or cold mix asphalt, or spray patching. View this video from MnDOT to find out more about potholing.
• Seal Coat and Crack Seal – Seal coat is the surface application of an asphalt emulsion followed by the placement of small graded aggregate. This process creates a wear-resistant coating that protects pavements from oxidation and the effects of moisture. Crack sealing fills visible cracks and curb lines to prevent water intrusion into the subgrade.  View the 2018 Seal Coat map or the 2018 Crack Seal map to see which streets will be affected this year.
• Mill and Overlay (Resurfacing) – This process removes the top 1 to 2 inches of distressed or cracked pavement and replaces it with a new layer of hot mix asphalt.
• Reclaim / Recycle (Rehabilitation) – This process is used when a complete reconstruction is unnecessary, but the road surface is in need of more improvement than sealcoating or resurfacing can provide. In this process, a mill / reclaim machine removes the entire full-depth road surface and grinds the asphalt to a specific gradation that can be reused as a base for a new full-depth road surface.
• Reconstruction – This process involves the full reclaim / recycle process, along with other infrastructure improvements such as water main, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, and/or small utility upgrades. It also involves complete curb and gutter removal and replacement. All yards and driveways that are disrupted during a reconstruction are restored to a comparable state upon completion of the street reconstruction.

As part of the City’s Public Works Quality Standards, average target OCI values have been set at 75 for collector streets and 60 for local streets. Based on these average target OCI values, the City annually reviews the overall street system to identify projects.

Resources

View an informative video from MnDOT about gravel road maintenance
View an informative video from MnDOT about paved road maintenance