Cost of Gravel Road Maintenance/Cost of Paving Remaining Gravel Roads

Purpose:
Provide estimated costs of summer time maintenance for gravel roads.
Background: 
The city maintains approximately 2.41 miles of gravel roads throughout the city.  Grading happens about once per month from April to October depending on rain fall.  In the winter the motor grader is used in early winter and late spring when the roads are soft.  Once the gravel roads freeze, plow trucks take over snow removal operations.
 

10-15 Minutes

The maintenance costs for this case are based off the 2019 FEMA Equipment Rates and our current salary structure for PW employees.  The current salary for a senior equipment operator is $29.59/hour, and the 2019 FEMA rate for our motor grader is $67.50/hour.  This gives us our hourly maintenance rate of $97.09.  The average time to grade our 2.41 miles of gravel roads is 3.6 hours at a cost of $349.52. 
This case is in response to an inquiry about the cost of paving Xenolith St/178th Ln in the northern part of the city.  This section of Xenolith St  has poor sub soils and would need substantial correction, before it could be paved.  The recommendation would be to sub cut the existing road bed, add fabric and fill with 3 feet of granular base.  Estimated cost would be $431,521.00 for Xenolith St and an additional cost of $153,843.49 for 178th ln.  Total estimated project cost $585,365.00

N/A

Based on the fact that there is no dedicated funding source for this project at this time, staff recommends continuing with our current maintenance practice, until such time a funding source can be developed to pave the remaining gravel roads 

Motion to  council to continue with our current maintenance practice, until such time a funding source can be developed to pave the remaining gravel roads.