Commissioners adopt changes to URMD services to include safety improvements
by James Trumper
The Urban Road Maintenance District (URMD) is a service district created by voters in 1994 that provides road maintenance, ditch cleaning and traffic calming services on local and neighborhood streets in the unincorporated areas of Washington County within the Urban Growth Boundary. Property owners in the district pay an annual property tax levy of $0.2456 per $1,000 of assessed value, which results in an annual revenue of $3.5 million for the district.
The Washington County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) has recently approved modifications to the URMD ordinance to add "safety improvements" to the scope of services that the URMD provides. Until this point the scope of services has been limited to maintenance services. The road maintenance category includes slurry seal, overlay, pothole repair and crack seal. URMD currently spends approximately $1.5 million on road maintenance with the remainder being allocated for vegetation management, the Neighborhood Streets Program, ditch & drain maintenance (provided by Clean Water Services) and administration.
Why are safety improvements being added to the services that the district provides? As most locals know, many of our local streets, and especially the more busy "neighborhood routes" like Leahy Road, McDaniel Road and 111th Avenue are not safe to travel on foot or by bike. Because of the priorities set in the Transportation Plan, the County does not have enough money from the primary road maintenance fund (derived from gas tax revenue) to improve these streets. Most of the roads that need safety improvements are within the URMD, so URMD is a logical choice for a revenue source. Before the URMD ordinance was changed by the BCC, URMD could not legally allocate budget towards capital projects (which is how safety improvements are classified).
What are safety improvements? Safety improvements include, but are not limited to, crosswalks, connecting sidewalk segments, improved signage, filling in ditches, and widening pavement to allow for safe passage for pedestrians and bicycles. Many of these improvements are considered "interim measures" since full build out to meet current standards for sidewalks and bike lanes would be cost-prohibitive.
What is PCI and why is it important? PCI is the Pavement Condition Index. It is a number between 0 and 100 that indicates the quality of pavement for a road. A PCI of 100 represents a brand new road. Generally speaking a road starts to deteriorate rapidly when the PCI is below 65. The average PCI for roads in URMD is currently in the low 80s. This means that the URMD has been doing a good job of achieving the primary goal of road maintenance.
How will safety improvements be paid for? Safety improvements will not be paid for by an increase in the current tax levy. That would require a vote of property owners within the URMD. So this means that the money allocated for safety improvements will have to come out of the current annual budget for services. The approach being taken is to lower the target PCI to 75 and allocate the money saved toward safety improvements. The County Operations team has estimated that out of the $1.5M currently spent on road maintenance, a minimum of $250,000 is needed for the next three years, and $500,000 for the following two years, to maintain the roads at the target PCI of 75. This excludes 2.8 miles of road that needs to be reconstructed at an approximate cost of $750,000 to maintain the average PCI across the district at 75. Therefore, in theory, there is approximately $5M available for safety improvements over the next five years.
How much money will actually be allocated for safety improvements? This is where the URMDAC comes in. URMDAC is the Urban Road Maintenance District Advisory Committee, which was formed as the result of an external audit of URMD in 2007. URMDAC members are citizens who reside in URMD. URMDAC's primary purpose is to review URMD services, work with County Operations team to craft the annual work program, and make recommendations to the URMD board. This committee meets the third Wednesday of the month at 4:00 p.m. at the Washington County maintenance facility located at 1400 SW Walnut Street in Hillsboro.
The committee is currently working on a recommendation for the budgetary allocation for safety improvements for the 2012 URMD program. Unless the committee decides to reduce services in areas that do not include road maintenance (e.g. vegetation management or the Neighborhood Streets program), the money for safety improvements will come out of the current $1.5M annual allocation for road maintenance. A minimum of $250,000 must be spent on road maintenance, primarily slurry seal and overlay, to maintain the PCI. This means that $1.25M can theoretically be set aside for safety improvements and other needs such as reconstruction.
At the October meeting, URMDAC members considered the following allocations: $250,000 for reconstruction, $750,000 for road maintenance and $500,000 for safety improvements. The committee will continue deliberations and make a final decision on the budget allocation recommendation at the November 16 URMDAC meeting. The recommendation will be forwarded to the BCC for approval. NOTE: members of the public are welcome to comment on the process and attend the URMDAC meetings as well as relevant Board meetings.
If the board approves funding for safety improvements, which projects will be tackled? URMDAC is also charged with recommending a list of safety improvements for the annual maintenance program. Current thinking is that the list will be derived from the prioritized list of Minor Betterment Projects.
More information about URMD and URMDAC can be found on the Washington County website at http://www.co.washington.or.us/LUT/Divisions/Operations/Programs/urban-road-maintenance-district.cfm (or simply Google "Washington County URMD"). To submit comments about URMD and the current process for allocating funds and deciding projects, please send email to Stacia_Sheelar@co.washington.or.us
About the author: James Trumper has been a resident of Cedar Mill since 1989 and is the current Chair of URMDAC. He can be reached by email at james@trumper.us or by phone at (503) 314 1818.
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