Street Maintenance Division

The budget for the City’s street repair and maintenance program for fiscal years 2019 through 2023 is programmed to include $90 million per year. The program is funded through revenues from the Arizona highway user gas tax and Transportation 2050 (T2050) sales tax.

Prior to the voter-approved 35-year Transportation 2050 sales tax, which became effective Jan. 1, 2016, the annual budget for street repair and maintenance was typically between $24 - $27 million.

Through T2050 nearly $1 billion from Transportation 2050 program funds will be allocated to maintain the city’s arterial and major collector street network.

Learn more about the City's pavement program.

To determine the order and priorities of which streets will receive pavement overlays, Streets utilizes a pavement management system methodology. The foundation of that methodology is field data obtained using a high-tech pavement management vehicle, the Automated Road Analyzer (ARAN). ARAN measures and records the condition of roads, evaluating them on surface roughness, environmental stresses, and structural condition. Based on the resulting pavement condition index (PCI) rating, which is measured 0-100 (worst to excellent), staff uses these objective measurements of roadway conditions to develop an initial list of roads to receive an asphalt overlay. Learn more about ARAN.

Once it is developed, the initial list of roads is put through a rigorous coordination review, which includes evaluating the following:

• Coordination or conflicts with other City projects
• Right of way concerns
• Environmental issues
• Utility issues or conflicts
• Field visual inspections
• Pavement age
• Roadway traffic volumes
• Alternate treatments
• Economic and community impacts

Although objective criteria are used in identifying roads in greatest need of maintenance, staff strives to closely balance street maintenance activities and funding equitably across the city within resource limitations.

Asphalt pavement is designed to be flexible, which allows it to adapt to the wide temperature swings that occur in Arizona. Following initial construction, pavement begins the process of oxidation, which is basically the evaporation of the oils in the pavement. Over time, the pavement becomes dry, brittle, more rigid, and less flexible. Repeated traffic loading also contributes to the degradation of the pavement over time.

The aggregate starts wearing away, causing cracks. Some small cracks can start to show in the first year of new pavement. The city of Phoenix strives to provide a quality maintenance program to extend the life cycle of asphalt 25-30 years and even up to 40 years, saving taxpayer’s money while providing safe and efficient roadways. See the Maintenance and Resurfacing Techniques section for commonly used pavement maintenance techniques.