Pearland - Friendswood Edition | November 2024

Pearland tackling streets eroded by drought From the cover

In the past six months, the Pearland streets division prioritized roads rated as “poor” or “very poor,” such as Garden Road and Fite Road. The division focused on asphalt roads, which are easier to repair than concrete roads, officials said. A snapshot of Pearland roads

What’s being done

Key

Excellent to very good

Good

Fair

Marginal

Poor to very poor

In Pearland, 82% of the city’s road miles have a condition of “good” or better, compared to 89% across the state of Texas, according to a report detailing streets through fiscal years 2020-2023 from the Texas Department of Transportation’s pavement management information system. Despite this, data from Infrastructure Management Services, which carried out Pearland’s study, scored the state’s average lower than Pearland, with a PCI of 68, according to city documents. Pearland Right of Way Superintendent Dante Prescod said city officials hope to improve its score by repairing the roads that are most damaged first. Historically, the city has published its PCI scores every five to seven years, Pearland Communications Director Josh Lee said. This year, the city launched on its website a public-facing interactive PCI platform that is updated more frequently to capture the city’s progress on road repairs, Lee said. “This now can be a living document … which I think is a really powerful thing,” Lee said. Ideally, the map will get updated every couple of weeks to reflect new projects, Prescod said.

Three months ago

Now

M C H A R D

HUGHES RANCH RD.

AUSTIN AVE.

O L

B A I L E Y R D .

Upcoming projects Of the seven street projects Pearland will work on over the next six months, about 20% were flagged as in “poor” or “very poor” condition.

Poor: 10% Very poor: 10% Other: 80%

SOURCE: CITY OF PEARLAND/COMMUNITY IMPACT

Some of the different pavement issues Pearland deals with include: Types of pavement defects

The conditions

Lorenzo Wingate, director of engineering and public works for Pearland, said he felt the majority street issues came from severe weather conditions. “We went through severe drought ... two years in a row,” Wingate said. “That really takes a toll on the roadway conditions.” Heavy traffic as well as water seeping into the roads or a lack of moisture entirely can cause the ground underneath the road to separate, creating cracks in an asphalt road, which tend to wear down faster than concrete, Wingate said. More than 200 miles of Pearland’s streets are asphalt, which is a greater number and proportion than several nearby cities, according to Pearland’s June 2024 Capital Improvement Project update.

Cracking that runs parallel to the pavement’s center, which could allow moisture inside and indicate an onset of structural failure. Longitudinal cracking

Aligator cracking

These are interconnected cracks caused by fatigue to the asphalt due to repeated heavy traffic.

Potholes

A section of pavement that has been replaced with new material to repair the existing surface. A patch is considered a defect, regardless of performance. Patching

A small, bowl-shaped depressions in the pavement surface that penetrate through the asphalt layer down to the base.

Breakdown of Pearland's streets Concrete

Asphalt 18.8%

81.2%

Where public works is paving in the next six months Concrete Asphalt 98.7% 1.3%

SOURCE: CITY OF PEARLAND/COMMUNITY IMPACT

COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM