Savannah uses survey to prioritize road repairs

BySean Evans|July 5, 2020 at 6:22 PM EDT - Updated July 5 at 11:35 PM

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) -Keeping up with road infrastructure is an ongoing feat for any local government.

And it’s enough of a priority here in Savannah that taxpayers voted to make sure millions were set aside in the latest SPLOST 7 cycle to fix up the City’s roads.

The City used a program called RoadBotics to conduct a survey analyzing Savannah’s 700-plus miles of road, giving each surface a 1-5 rating. One is the best, five being the worst.

The results were also color-coded and pictures were taken of each road so City staff could more easily prioritize what surfaces needed more work. It took about a year to do the assessment, and as the $20 million in SPLOST funding starts coming in over the next 6-year cycle, roads will get the attention they need. But the entire network won’t get done at once. The City’s chief infrastructure and development officer explains how the project selection works.

“The program rates the roads one through five, five being the worst,” said Savannah’s Chief Infrastructure and Development Officer Heath Lloyd. ”So what we’re looking at is certainly a mix of roads from three, four and five. Now that mix is something that we’re really going to have to work on. We want to get some of the worst roads obviously, but then we want to stop the roads that may be assessed at a three from getting worse. We don’t want them to get to a four.”

In Savannah there’s a good mix of road types and degree of travel, that factors in as well.

“The real effort is going to come with theSPLOSTfunding that again, I thank the citizens for supporting as it relates to infrastructure,” Lloyd said.

He added, “The good news about it is we’ve already looked at some of the worst roads in Savannah, the fives, and we are going to focus on some of them.”

Photo: WTOC


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