Orange County NC Website
stream crossings,_ poor drainage, or is built upon a soft <br /> unstable base soil should be paved more urgently than a <br /> straight , flat , dry, road with a good firm underlying <br /> soil . W. Watkins , the Division Engineer, has been U't75:12 <br /> questioned about a general road quality rating plan that <br /> may be in effect in the Department of Transportation . <br /> Apparently there is none. Contact has been made in the' <br /> private sector of the road building industry, again with <br /> no success . This could be a time consuming procedure to <br /> organize , and would require experience that does not <br /> exist within the Committee , though an extremely simple <br /> approach could be' attempted in the future. Our <br /> committee would undertake the rating of Orange County <br /> roads if the Board feels there is merit in this approach <br /> for ' future changes to the system. <br /> D. E t i c i 2aint.X-.EaMini P r o <br /> 1. The most recent information concerning ' the cost of <br /> paving indicates that about $80 , 000 per mile would be <br /> required if no grading or draining were needed. There <br /> were 217.9' miles of unpaved roads in Orange County as of <br /> January first , 1985. This represents about 35% of the <br /> 625.01 miles of secondary roads existing in the county <br /> as of that date. Compared to the other 99 counties , <br /> Orange is 38th in percentage of unpaved roads, well <br /> below average. Using the optimistic $80 ,000/mile , a <br /> minimum of 17.4 million dollars would be needed to pave <br /> all of the existing secondary roads .. If it is assumed <br /> that allocations to the county for secondary roads were <br /> to continue at the $500 ,000/year level experienced for <br /> the ' 85-"86 program, and about 65% were to be used fort <br /> paving of secondary roads , over 53 years would be <br /> needed. Of this 65% of the total funds available' for <br /> the ' 85-' 86 program for paving of Secondary roads only <br /> 60% (39% of total) is to be used to pave roads within <br /> priority. Over $103 , 000 is being used in the <br /> Participatory Paving Program on roads that range from <br /> #31 to 172 on the priority list . This is felt to be <br /> inequitable in that roads that are viewed as more sorely <br /> needed are not being paved because the money is being <br /> used to assist in the paving of less essential roads . <br /> The committee felt that limits should be placed on the _ <br /> funds available for the Participatory Program and feel <br /> that the sliding scale proposed above is more fair than <br /> an arbitrary- limit to the percentage that, can be used <br /> for participatory work.. <br /> LII ., Evaluation Qf the EfLeal ..Qf._.$assmmandasi_Changaa <br /> A. Chaagaa_in_Ihe_EZiatirY_Bat:ine_a!aiam <br /> Attachments "Aa" and "Ab" show the Priority Listing for the <br /> top 40 roads. as.. published, by the Department of Transportation <br /> for Pr.ogr.am. Year "85-"860. For the purpose of comparison some <br /> of the descriptive information has been omitted. The two <br />