Olympia Finance Committee recommends sending 0.1% sales tax boost proposal to support roads and sidewalks

Olympia's Finance Committee on July 19 approved the Public Works Transportation division's recommendation to increase by 0.1% the local sales tax through the Transportation Benefit District (TBD) to fund projects that aim to enhance pedestrian safety and accessibility.

The committee will forward the recommendation to the city council for consideration.

According to Transportation Director Sophie Stimson, the proposed 0.1% increase in sales tax and retaining the current $40 license fee would generate $3.1 million in new revenue.

The new potential funding aims to support transportation capital projects. Stimson proposed a $1 million allocation for pavement management and $1.6 million for TMP projects, with a portion of the funding, about $100,000, to be designated for a new engineer to assist with project delivery.

The city would set aside about $500,000 for sidewalk repair and ADA ramps, according to Stimson.

At the July 19 meeting, Olympia's Finance Committee approved a recommendation of a 0.1% increase in sales tax to support transportation projects.

Pavement management

Joey Jones, the city's project engineer, underscored the necessity of a funding increase to prevent Olympia's pavements from further deterioration.

The city manages approximately 529 lane miles of road.

"Being such a large asset, it is critical that we continuously evaluate the appropriate funding levels to sustain it," Jones said.

In 2021, Jones said, Olympia hired a consultant to assist in updating the city's pavement management system.

The consultant assessed pavements using rates from 0 to 100, where higher scores indicate newer streets and lower scores represent failed ones. These ratings are classified into four categories: very good, good, poor and very poor.

Jones presented a graph reflecting Olympia's average pavement rating for the past 15 years, which showed the city's pavement rating standing at 67. The city's last survey was in 2021.

"The current plan is to complete a condition survey every three years. Another survey would be completed in 2024… the predicted rating in 2024 will be at 66," Jones said.

To further illustrate the relationship between pavement age and pavement rating, Jones presented another graph demonstrating that newly constructed streets that maintain good condition would stay for a time before experiencing accelerated degradation. As pavement ages, their condition can rapidly decline, resulting in a poor or very poor rating.

Olympia's current pavement condition rating is 67, according to the graph presented at the Finance Committee meeting.

Jones discussed treatments available for varying pavement conditions and their relative costs. He said routine maintenance, such as crack sealing and occasional pothole repairs, suits streets in very good condition. Preservation treatments apply to good-condition streets, such as chip sealing and asphalt patching. Rehabilitation measures like overlays and subgrade patching are typically employed for roads in poor condition. Complete reconstruction becomes necessary for streets in very poor condition, entailing a complete rebuild of the roadway.

Jones also discussed the financial analysis regarding the state of the city's pavements. They employ a predictive model to anticipate the pavement rating over the next five years (2024-2028) under different funding scenarios:

• At the current funding level, $3.25 million, the model predicts a pavement condition rating of 60 at the end of 2028.
• An increased funding of $2 million per year – or $5.25 million – would the pavement condition rating at 62.
• To maintain the rating of 65, or at least the same as the 2024 predicted rate of 66, a $10.6 million funding is needed.

"The biggest takeaway is that at current funding levels, we will see more costly treatments and repairs in the future by not addressing the pavement needs. It means more costly reconstruction later. The goal is lower-cost treatments on more streets because if the streets degrade without regular maintenance, more costly reconstruction is needed later," Jones told the committee members.

"While I recognize that $5.25 million or $10.6 million may not be possible, some increase is needed so we don't truly slide down too far on that curve. So that we can stay up in that optimum zone for treatment," Jones added.

Sidewalk assessment

In the preliminary Capital Facilities Plan 2024, Stimson mentioned they are proposing a sidewalk repair project focusing on downtown and major corridors with the highest volume of pedestrians. The project is funded at $500,000.

Stimson added that they are also proposing $100,000 in the CFP to survey every sidewalk in Olympia to assess the condition and identify areas that need repair or improvement.

The survey would include an assessment of access ramps to help the city with the ADA transition plan.

The collection of data is projected to occur in 2024 and 2025, involving the recruitment of a contractor and the establishment of data collection criteria.

"This will be hugely important in helping us understand this problem's scope and scale… we would be able to make a decision that is more database. We would be able to look at the results of the assessment and have a much better sense of what the size of this problem in our city," Stimson said, adding that they would present the findings to the city council for a policy decision in 2025.