El Paso County releases this year’s road paving list; nearly 40 roads selected

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- In unanimously approving the 2024 road paving list this week, El Paso County Commissioners praised a new data-driven approach used by county engineers to better assess road conditions and increase paving efficiency in the county's unincorporated areas.

Such an approach -- already utilized by cities like Fountain and Pueblo -- can also help citizens understand why some roads are paved before others.

"For the first time that I'm aware of, the county did a full assessment of all of our road needs," said the county's head engineer, Joshua Palmer. "It was a 3-D assessment. Our consultant drove every single mile of our roadway system. Road type, base type, cracks, intersection analysis, and then that data went into the pavement software."

Palmer said that the new software focuses in optimizing instead of prioritizing.

"In the past, we've prioritized our work based on the amount of money that we have," he explained. "This new system allows us to optimize it -- and not only get the best bang for our buck, but also plan for incremental and consistent improvements in the future."

Palmer said that the assessment took a year to conduct and was completed a few months ago.

"Most people won't see a change, as far as how many roads are done," he said. "We're really trying to focus in on preservation rather than rehabilitation."

In other words, Palmer said that the county can save money and pave more efficiently by maintaining existing roads instead of allowing roads to become so bad they require reconstruction.

"Your road (may be) failing and it's going to take a lot more time and money to fix your road," he said. "But if we maintain your neighbor's road, that's more money we can spend in the future (instead of) replacing your road. I think transparency and education are key."

The county budget for road maintenance is $23 million this year, with $18 million allocated for repaving nearly 40 roads; the rest of the money will be spent on other types of maintenance on paved and unpaved roads.

The budget is down from last year's $40 million, because the county no longer has additional federal funding for COVID-19 pandemic recovery and doesn't have $10 million in one-time funding provided by commissioners last year.

"We're still paving more roads than we have in the past," Palmer said.

He added that the county's roads have an average Pavement Condition Index of 68, considered in the fair category but just outside the satisfactory category of 71-85.

"That's much better than I expected," Palmer said. "I would like all of our roads to be in the good category (86 and above)."

The county's plan incudes repaving nearly 36 miles of roads; 105 miles of asphalt pavement preservation; 54 miles of chip seal application; 66 miles of gravel road rehabilitation and 106 miles of dust control on unpaved roads.

To see El Paso County's 2024 road maintance list, visit: https://www.agendasuite.org/iip/elpaso/agendaitem/details/6874.

To report any road concerns in El Paso County, visit: https://citizenconnect.elpasoco.com/.

To see project updates, visit: https://publicworks.elpasoco.com/road-bridge/construction-maintenance-projects/.