PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Roadwork was the topic of conversation during Monday's Public Works and Utilities subcommittee meeting.

The panel discussed a request to review the city's pavement management plan and received an update on various roadwork projects from Commissioner of Public Services and Utilities Ricardo Morales.

Councilors at Large Peter White and Earl Persip III believe that a comprehensive review of the pavement management plan is needed to ensure the effectiveness and longevity of the city's infrastructure.

"We thought it was time that there was a comprehensive review of our pavement management plan," White explained. "And having this body involved in it we think is extremely important because you hear from your constituents every day."

They highlighted seven areas for focus:

• Evaluating the criteria and procedures used to prioritize roads for paving each year
• Assessing the feasibility and benefits of chip sealing certain roads as a cost-saving pavement preservation method
• Developing a long-term pavement preservation plan
• Implementing a systematic approach to address issues after road construction maintenance
• Determining an appropriate budget allocation for crack sealing as proactive maintenance
• Establishing a clear schedule and plan for routine line painting
• Developing a comprehensive schedule and plan for street sweeping

White pointed out that chip sealing was discontinued a few years ago and it may be time to revisit that conversation. He and Persip would like to see these items discussed to see if they need to be amended.

"It's a great conversation to have on a regular basis to share what we do, to revisit the process," Morales said.

He walked the councilors through the pavement condition index that the city uses to identify the condition of roads with information that is captured on a three-year rotating basis. A contracted vehicle drives the city and measures the stress level on every paved street to establish a pavement condition score from zero to 100, which is a newly paved road.

Pittsfield's overall PCI is 66, a number that the city works towards increasing as more work is completed.

"What we want to see is next year we have a higher average PCI than last year," Morales said. "That is our goal."

The city has a $25 million backlog, meaning that if it put together that amount of money every Pittsfield road could in theory be fixed. However, instead of looking at it that way, he said it is more productive to spend the right amount of money based on different types of road reconstruction and preventative maintenance.

Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey said he is advocating for more state Chapter 90 road funding, which pays for road paving.

"What I hear the most from my constituents has to do with road, their taxes, schools to an extent, but a lot of it has to do with infrastructure and I think that we should be spending more on roadwork," he said.

In FY23, the city appropriation was more than $3.2 million with another $1.3 million in Chapter 90 funds and about $653,000 in Chapter 90 WRAP (Winter Recovery Assistance Program) funds. More than $4.4 million was spent on accepted streets including $997,468 in WRAP funds, about $391,000 in in-house work, and more than $1.6 million on sidewalks.

In FY24, the city appropriation was $7.5 million with again $1.3 million in Chapter 90. A total of more than $8.4 million was spent on accepted streets, about $216,000 on in-house work with an additional $108,111 encumbered, and about $749,236 was spent on sidewalks.

Last month, a petition from Ward 4 Councilor James Conant requesting an update on resurfacing, sidewalk reconstruction, preventative maintenance, line painting, streetscape maintenance, and manhole covers was referred to Morales.??

He reported that over the past several weeks, the Highway Division has addressed road defects and potholes during the warmer weather.  An area on South Street received prioritized attention and the requested work has been patched and is expected to last at least until a better repair can be done with asphalt in the spring.

Morales highlighted that the city is partnering with Downtown Pittsfield Inc. and Pittsfield Beautiful for streetscape maintenance in the downtown.

Last year, councilors expressed concerns with overgrown medians and flowerbeds. It was reported that an initiative called Downtown Blooms will address the issue, placing nature-inspired gardens as part of a three-year project.

"We have been working with Downtown Pittsfield Inc. and Pittsfield Beautiful and together we created what is called Downtown Blooms," he said.

"Currently we have a contractor that has cleared out 38 planting beds throughout the North Street area and in the spring, sometime in April depending on the weather, they are going to come back and prep some planting beds for actual plantings to go in by volunteers."

Downtown Blooms and DPI will be responsible for hiring a gardening contractor to take care of the plantings and the city will remain responsible for the funding.

Several projects are in the planning stage and details have not been finalized.

The city has an active contract with LB Corp. that will continue in the spring with about seven miles of road resurfacing.  The Engineering Division is in the process of finalizing the list of streets to be resurfaced for FY25 and the work is expected to be awarded by the end of April. This work will also include crack sealing and fog sealing. 

A contract for sidewalk reconstruction was awarded to J.H. Maxymillian and work is expected to begin in the spring.  The commissioner explained that the intent is to send the contractor to streets and assign work as needed, and is intended to be done in close coordination with city councilors.??

The city has entered into a county bid program for road markings and line painting. The contract includes water-based and thermoplastic paints and a separate contract will be awarded in the next month for a third type of paint.

"We primarily have been using waterborne paint. It is what the county purchasing has. They also have the epoxy paint. It is ten times more expensive so we tend not to go that route in order to be able to do more and that's why this next year they're still going to do the waterborne and the epoxy," Morales explained.

"What we would like to do is get the low VOC paint which is kind of in between and not as expensive as epoxy to be able to have a contractor do that type of work."

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