Marin County to factor racial equity in road paving plans

As part of its new commitment to have racial equity shape how county funds are spent, Marin County will use the racial demographics of neighborhoods to determine which roads to repair first.

“Our proposal is to prioritize benefits to underserved communities when developing an annual paving plan,” Pauletta Jordan, an assistant director in the county public works department, told the Board of Supervisors during a recent budget workshop.

The plan was unveiled as an example of how county departments are working closely with the county’s Office of Equity to recalibrate their priorities to focus on equity.

Jamillah Jordan, the county’s equity director, told supervisors that her office has developed a race equity budget tool that all of the county’s departments will eventually be expected to use.

She said the tool will “help our departments think through how they can allocate resources in an equitable and equity-centered way.”

“We know that resources are finite and we want to do things differently here,” she said.

Equity in this context refers to the practice of distributing resources to residents according to their needs rather than distributing them equally.

“One of the things we’ve been doing over the last few years is really focusing on applying resources where the needs are the greatest,” the equity director said. “The research indicates that is often our communities of color and our lower-income communities.”

The county’s approach to road repair has been to address the ones in the greatest state of disrepair first, because the longer a surface is allowed to deteriorate, the more it might cost to fix in the long run. A road’s “pavement condition index,” or PCI, is a major factor in determining whether it is selected for paving.

The PCI is a standardized measure assessed by independent engineering consultants through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The PCI ranks roads on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being a newly paved road.

Marin roads received a score of 65 in December, down from 66 in December 2021. A score of 65 is considered “fair” and indicates roads are at significant risk of breaking down.

In a report to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Marin County reported $2.3 million in damage to county roads during storms in December and January. The damage estimate for the March storms is $660,000, said Christopher Reilly, a county emergency manager.

While PCI scores are the dominant consideration in determining road repair, a number of lesser concerns are factored in. They include economy of scale, design challenges; road usage data; opportunities to coordinate with utilities; grant funding; projects that can be combined with other improvements; and imminent risks of roads becoming impassible.

Jordan, the public works official, said her department is developing a new procedure in collaboration with the Office of Equity.

“So that when prioritizing paving projects we are no longer looking at just the road conditions or quality factors, but we are also applying an equity lens, looking at the equity community indicators of that area,” she said.

“Enumerating these indicators into the calculations for road conditions will allow Department of Public Works analysts to quantify and compare county roads for improvement consideration in a way that is more equitable than just PCI alone,” she said. “Our future goal is that the pavement condition of racial residential roads in underserved communities will be at least equivalent to the countywide average.”

Public Works Director Rosemarie Gaglione the equity paving approach is still being planning and that the road work itself will occur in the 2024-25 fiscal year.

“We are working closely with the Office of Equity and they are assisting with neighborhood selection and whatever else we need help with,” Gaglione said. “This is a partnership.”

Gaglione noted that a similar approach has been taken by Oakland, which launched its $100 million “equity-focused paving plan” in 2019.

Supervisor Katie Rice expressed her support for the initiative, although she and Supervisor Mary Sackett pointed out that there might be problems coordinating with adjacent towns and cities that share roads and highway funding.

“I just really love that it’s not just PCI, that it looks at what are the needs of the community,” Rice said.