Budget cuts hurt road repairs

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

If you think Hawai'i roads are bad now, just wait a few years.

State transportation officials have cut back on maintenance in recent years because of budget cuts, giving rise to concerns that roads will deteriorate further — requiring even more expensive repairs in the long run.

"It's just like what happens with your car," said C.S. Papacostas, a civil engineering professor at the University of Hawai'i. "You can change the oil and do the other regular maintenance or you can wait till your engine explodes and get a bill that's astronomical."

Deferred maintenance already is causing significant problems. A 2001 survey by the Society of Civil Engineers in Hawai'i found:

• More than half of all major Hawai'i roads are in poor, mediocre or fair condition.
• Poor road conditions are a factor in an estimated 30 percent of traffic fatalities in the state.
• Hawai'i motorists spend an extra $114 million a year in repair and operating costs because of poor road conditions. That comes out to $151 per motorist each year.

"It's a huge problem at every level of government. There's not enough money to maintain the big infrastructures, never mind expand them," said University of Hawai'i professor Horst Brandes, president of the Society of Civil Engineers in Hawai'i. "We're probably no better or worse than any other place in the country."

Transportation officials say they have been hampered in recent years by political decisions that cut into maintenance money.

In the late 1990s, lawmakers repeatedly borrowed from the state Highway Fund to pay for other projects. That forced state officials to lengthen the regular maintenance schedule on most roads from 10 to 13 years.

Douglas Chock, a city employee, fills a pothole at Metcalf and Wilder streets near the University of Hawai'i. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Last week, City Council members voted to cut more than $6 million from the $40 million road maintenance budget proposed by Mayor Jeremy Harris, a move that will mean even fewer repairs this year.

"Every bit of that money means fewer potholes repaired, fewer streams cleared and fewer roads repaved," city spokeswoman Carol Costa said. "It's money we use for everyday stuff."

It also means that maintenance crews sometimes seek out cheaper means of repairs, said Jeff Spring, spokesman for AAA in California.

"Instead of taking up the old roadway and laying down new asphalt, they often just rough up the existing surface and put a thin slurry of tar over the top," he said. Often, though, that means the street will need another treatment in just three or five years, instead of 10 or 12 years.

City Managing Director Ben Lee said resurfacing a city street by putting a new layer of asphalt over the old one costs an average of $100,000 per lane-mile. The more extensive rebuilding of a street, in which the old pavement and underpinning is removed and replaced, costs about $200,000 per lane-mile.

While Hawai'i's tough climate — long periods of hot, dry weather punctuated by short, frequent bursts of heavy rain — takes a toll on the roads, it's the human factors that do the most damage.

"The biggest problem is when utility companies have to dig up a small part of the road," Lee said. The companies later patch the damaged section instead of repaving the whole lane, leaving the roadway vulnerable to wider damage caused by passing vehicles or new rain, Lee said.

"We've been trying to get the utility companies to pay for the road repaving, but they've been resisting so far," he said.

Meanwhile, the city has banned non-emergency utility work on roads that have been resurfaced in the previous two years.

Only the Board of Water Supply in recent years has agreed to pay for repaving after its road work, Lee said.

With that help, the city has been able to repave or rebuild about 320 lane-miles since 2000, he said. That's about 9.3 percent of the total 3,434 lane-miles of roads on O'ahu.

The average service life of a major road on O'ahu is about 10 years, with high-use bus routes needing even more frequent resurfacing, Lee said. Smaller residential streets need to be resurfaced every 12 to 15 years.

The city administration budgeted about $40 million for road maintenance in the next fiscal year, enough to repave another 148 lane-miles, Lee said. County Council members have proposed trimming the maintenance budget by about $6 million.

City Council members and others say the budget cuts and deferred maintenance haven't caused many complaints — yet.

"It's one of those things that kind of creeps up on you," said Mike Gabbard, chairman of the council's Public Works Committee. "We don't hear much about it right now, but down the line, I'm afraid of what's going to happen."

One indication that the problem is getting worse is the number of complaints the city receives on its pothole phone hot line — and how quickly it can respond to them.

In the 1999-2000 fiscal year, the city received 1,222 complaints about potholes on city roads and was able to patch 87 percent of them within 48 hours. During the last fiscal year, 2001-02, the number of total complaints jumped to 2,200 and crews were able to patch only 51 percent of them within the same 48-hour window, Lee said.

The maintenance problems are not unique to Hawai'i, Spring said.

"It's something that's happening across the country at the federal, state and local levels," he said. "In times of budget deficits, maintenance is one of the first things that gets shined on, and at first nobody pays much attention. Eventually, though, it catches up with you and suddenly everybody is shocked by how much money it costs to fix the problem."

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5466 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Correction: Councilman Mike Gabbard is chairman of the City Council Public Works Committee. He was misidentified in a previous version of this story. Also, before this year, the Honolulu City Council had not cut city administration budget requests for road maintenance. A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that city transportation officials have cut back on street maintenance in recent years because of budget cuts.