City losing ground on street repairs.

Byline: Edward Russo The Register-Guard

Call Eugene's backlog of street repairs the bogeyman of city government.

Public works officials cite the backlog - now estimated at $170 million - as their main worry each time they talk to the City Council about their struggle to pay for street work.

The backlog led the council four years ago to approve a local gasoline tax. Councilors continue to consider imposing other taxes for street repairs.

The subject has even spilled into Eugene's electoral arena. Upset by the council's latest 3-cents-a gallon gas tax hike, the Oregon Petroleum Association launched a successful referendum effort that will put the increase up for a vote on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Residents have different views on increasing the tax, already the highest of 16 city or county gas taxes in the state.

North Eugene resident Violet Scott hadn't heard of the backlog, but she's opposed to the tax increase. "I'm living on a very strict budget," she said.

Scott, a retiree, doesn't know where the city gets money for street repairs or why the cost of deferred work keeps growing at a rapid rate.

"I don't know where all this money is going to," she said.

South Eugene resident Karen Seidel, a retiree from the University of Oregon, said she supports raising the tax because she favors Eugene "trying to get more money for better streets."

"I just have a strong feeling that one's quality of life is dependent on the quality of life in the overall community," she said. "Our quality of life doesn't stop at our property line."

Eugene businessman Randy Pape said "there's no question" that the city needs more money to pay for street repairs.

"The question is, how do you raise the funding?" said Pape, a member of the state Transportation Commission, which oversees the state Department of Transportation.

There are other questions, too.

What makes up the backlog? And why does the backlog continue to grow even after the council approved a gas tax four years ago to tackle the problem?

The backlog is made up of all city-owned streets that need work - from pothole-riddled stretches that must be totally rebuilt, to segments that need new surfaces, to streets that need cracks filled.

In short, if the city had enough money to bring all of its streets up to perfect condition, it would cost $170 million, or today's estimated backlog.

The backlog suggests that Eugene isn't dedicating enough money for street repairs to keep up with the work the city engineers identify.

Six years ago, when the council appointed a committee to study the problem, the backlog was estimated at $67 million.

Since then, with the city's gas tax generating $3.3 million a year for street repairs, the backlog has ballooned.

Without additional money, the backlog will reach $282 million by 2016, public works officials estimate.

"If we don't put money into this problem, the problem grows," public works spokesman Eric Jones said.

That's because the cost to repair a street rises exponentially the longer the street is left unfixed.

By the time potholes show up in a street, city officials figure it's four times more expensive to fix than it is to repave it earlier, when slight cracks have appeared.

Once potholes appear, many streets must be scraped down to the road bed and completely rebuilt. So the city tries to stop streets from deteriorating to that point.

During the recently completed road construction season, the city resurfaced streets, such as Norkenzie Road in north Eugene, that, to the untrained eye, didn't look in bad shape.

"You can't see those kinds of things at 35 miles per hour," Jones said.

Besides the local gas tax, the city uses state gas taxes and other funds to pay for street repairs.

In the past five years, the city has repaved 125 lane miles. That's less than 10 percent of the city's lane miles.

Backlog grows and grows

But even with the gas tax funding, the city appears to be losing ground in its quest to upgrade streets.

In 2001, for example, the city figured that 24 miles of streets needed to be rebuilt, the most expensive type of improvement, said Eric Johnson, public works surface operations manager.

By last year, that figure had jumped to 64 miles.

In 2001, 72 miles of streets needed repaving, Johnson said. Five years later, that figure had risen to 98 miles.

The number of streets that slipped from the repaving list to the rebuild list have been the "most significant reason for the increase in the backlog," Johnson said.

"A lot of our streets are old. And it's how we use the streets," he said. "We have more traffic than before, and there are more trucks and buses," which are hard on streets, he said.

Like most Oregon cities, Eugene doesn't rely on property taxes to maintain streets, though it occasionally makes a general fund appropriation for street repairs.

"There is no pressure from the public to prioritize the maintenance of city streets," former Mayor Jim Torrey said. "And that works its way down from the public, to the citizen members of the Budget Committee, to the elected members of the City Council."

Instead, Eugene and other cities get a share of the state gas tax to repair streets. (Eugene pays for new streets from other sources, such as federal funds and impact fees paid by developers.)

The state gas tax, which hasn't been raised in 14 years, isn't keeping pace with the need to repair streets, says the League of Oregon Cities, which produced a report on the subject last March.

There are more motorists statewide than ever, but fuel efficient vehicles and greater use of carpooling and mass transit have kept all cities' share of the state gas tax relatively flat, the League said.

Also, Lane County used to give Eugene money for road work. In the past five years, that averaged $1.2 million annually. But under intense financial pressure of its own, the county ended the aid in June.

Other fees considered

The increasing costs of repaving or rebuilding streets also has caused the backlog to grow.

Asphalt is made up of oil and gravel. With the recent dramatic rise in oil prices, the cost to build or repave streets has increased, too.

In 2006, asphalt prices rose 66 percent from the year before, Johnson said.

The backlog has caused the council to consider other fees besides the gas tax to raise money for street repairs.

In the coming months, councilors are to analyze a local option levy for streets and a parking-space fee on homes and businesses.

Meanwhile, Eugene voters next month will decide whether to raise the city's nickel-a-gallon gas tax by 3 cents, to 8 cents a gallon.

That would raise another $2 million annually for street repairs. Even with that amount, however, the backlog will continue to grow.

City officials estimate that it would take an additional $13 million to $14 million year to start reducing the backlog in the next decade.

$3.3 million

Amount city's gas tax generates

per year for street repairs

$4.9 million

Amount spent to repair Eugene roadways in 2007

162 miles

Eugene streets needing rebuilding

or repaving last year

EUGENE STREETS

BY THE NUMBERS

Centerline miles: 527

Lane miles: 1,318

Estimated replacement cost: $500 million,

city's largest asset

Estimated repair backlog: $170 million; of that, $118 million to rebuild streets, $46 million to repave streets, $6 million for crack sealing

Spent to operate streets in 2007: $8.5 million, including pothole patching, street lighting, crack sealing, traffic signals

Amount generated by each cent of Eugene gas tax: $670,000