Road Bond Informational Session

The Stonington Public Works Department is responsible for maintaining Town approved roads in the best condition as possible. Over the last five years, approximately $320k annually has been allocated for fixing roads. Although the road needs have been great, we worked to keep a relatively flat budget on road repairs to help maintain a minimal budget increase. Unfortunately, many of the roads in the Pawcatuck and Mystic area haven’t had repairs in over 30 years. Although we have been doing the best we can in keeping them in good condition, there are many more roads in Town that need to be repaired and/or reconstructed than we have funds for.  This provides a difficult scenario.

To determine the extent of such problems, I asked our Public Works Director Joe Bragaw to survey the condition of all of the roads in town to determine if and when a particular pavement treatment would be needed.  He also collected actual costs over the last few years so we know what each treatment would cost if Town staff were to general contract the work.  We used a 5% inflation figure for work done in the future. Based on the actual cost numbers, we were able to apply a square foot cost per treatment times the square feet of each road times the inflation rate to come up with a cost per road.  In total, if we had “all the money in the world” we would need just under $14 million to address all of the roads at this time.  We certainly understand that we don’t have that kind of money to work with.

It is important to note that the way public works professionals are currently tackling this problem is by taking care of the roads that only show minor to moderate issues and leaving the worst roads until later.  The roads that are in poor condition are already in demise and they would eat up a large percentage of the budget for a small area. 

 So how do we solve this problem?  Many towns such as Ledyard and Westerly have already passed bonding to improve their roads in their Towns and Groton is looking into doing it now. 

In Stonington, we have put together a pavement plan that includes $3.45 million in work funded through a proposed bond. This plan would allow us to improve 49 roads in Town (or approx 25.3 miles of road).  Since this work would involve approximately five times the amount of work that we are usually accustomed to, we would focus on milling and paving roads first as there is less prep work and these roads will cost much more to repair if they fall into the next repair category. We would finish the priority 1 roads first then go to the next priority. We are looking to do this work over a four year time period (from now until 2015). 

If the proposed paving plan bond is funded, along with ongoing effort of with crack sealing, we will be able to address the immediate needs of approximately 67 out of the 110 miles of Town approved roads (or 62% of our roads). This will provide our town with a terrific infrastructure for its residents.

To learn more about the Roads bond proposal (and the Athletics Fields bond proposal), a Public Information Session is scheduled for Monday, Sept 24, 2012 at 7pm in Stonington High School Commons. Currently a Town Meeting is scheduled for Oct. 9th and Referendum for these two items is scheduled for Oct 17th.There will be brief presentations for both items and then the floor will be open for any questions.