Forget the worst roads in Hawai'i. It's the good ones that really need attention.

In fact, if state and city officials don't start doing more preventive maintenance on roads that are usable now, they'll end up with even bigger problems down the line, according to a new group dedicated to giving Hawai'i drivers a smoother ride.

"You can fix bad roads forever, but unless you start doing more to preserve the existing roads, things will never improve," said Bill Paik, president of the Hawai'i Highway Users Alliance. "In the end, that will cost you even more money."

State and city officials admit that their attention — and most of their money — has been focused in recent years on repaving the busiest, most pothole-filled streets and highways. However, new initiatives under way in Honolulu and at the state Transportation Department are beginning to address the even more crucial need for preventive maintenance of roads that haven't started to crumble yet.

"The sad thing is that we haven't been able to maintain what's been in our inventory. The commitment has not been there over the last 20 years," said Brennon Morioka, DOT's deputy director for highways. "We're looking at ways to change that."

The most promising changes involve development of systematic reviews of all state and city roads that can be used to prioritize repairs. DOT already has developed a task force to quantify the problem and deal with it; city officials say they hope to start doing the same this year.

"It's the most radical idea to come out of DOT in years," said Bob Creps, of Grace Pacific Corp., the primary supplier of road resurfacing material in the state.

The state and city have dramatically increased funding for road repairs in the past year. The state DOT added $20 million to its maintenance budget, while Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann has launched a campaign to bring city roads up to par. Four new city road rehabilitation contracts totaling more than $20 million are set to be awarded by the end of the year.

At the same time, the city filled more than 32,000 potholes throughout O'ahu through the first eight months of the year, said Larry Leopardi, Honolulu's chief of road maintenance operations. Since a state audit earlier this year criticized practices in the road maintenance division, the city has begun using more expensive asphalt mixes to make more lasting pothole repairs, and expanded its efforts at other short-term repairs, such as light repaving of heavily used streets.

It's still not enough, Paik said.

"The worst thing is to respond to the worst problems first," he said. "The people deserve better roads than that. Once you are dealing with potholes, the pavement has already gone down the tubes. The time for action is before you get to that stage."

A 2004 survey using the industry-standard International Roughness Index found that 18 percent of state-owned roads on O'ahu are rated poor. Those are the roads that require and receive the most extensive and expensive rehabilitation work, often in boom-and-bust cycles of funding supplied by lawmakers, Morioka said.

That money comes at the expense, though, of more routine roadway maintenance that could save local governments millions of dollars a year in the long run, several industry officials said.

"If we had enough funds to establish a regular pavement management system, we'd have a much better way of knowing where we really need to spend the money and when," Leopardi said. His department relies on visual inspection and complaints for scheduling much of its repair work.

The city is awaiting the governor's release of $4 million authorized by the state Legislature this year to help establish a pavement management system in Honolulu, Leopardi said. That would help officials quantify the cost of doing or delaying repairs, which in turn could help persuade City Council members to spend more money on preventive maintenance projects, he said.

Meanwhile, DOT has begun its own efforts to better inventory existing roads and recommend strategies for an improved maintenance schedule, Morioka said. The amount of money spent, number of asphalt tons and concrete cubic yards used each year and changes in the roughness ratings all will be used to measure how much success the department is having in improving maintenance, he said.

Morioka said DOT also hopes to persuade lawmakers to stop raiding the department's highways fund, which is financed mostly through state fuel taxes paid by motorists. Lawmakers have taken $154 million from the fund since 1996, he said.

"We think we have better usages for the money," he said.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.