Your Starting PCI Changes Everything: Understanding the Pavement Aging Curve
Why do two cities with the exact same average PCI often require completely different road maintenance budgets? The answer lies in the non-linear pavement aging curve. Learn how your network's starting conditions dictate how hard—and how expensive—it is to protect your community's roads before they hit the "crumble zone."
The $20,000 Rule: How Much Does It Really Cost to Maintain City Roads?
Every city manager and public works director has asked some version of this question: If we spend X on roads this year, what happens? The honest answer is that it depends — on your road network, your starting condition, your goals, and your methodology. But we can model it.
Using GoodRoads' pavement management tools, we ran a citywide PCI projection across a wide range of annual budget levels — from $0/mile all the way up to $300k/mile.
The Force Multiplier: Why Your Climate Dictates Your Maintenance ROI
When we look at the average Pavement Condition Index (PCI) across our national network, the "Weather Tax" becomes visible. By grouping our client data by climate profile, we see how the environment forces different "Aging Curves" on different regions.
Why Do Utility Cuts Wreck the Road?
The FHWA's Manual for Controlling and Reducing the Frequency of Pavement Utility Cuts puts it plainly: utility cuts reduce pavement life, and the damage extends well beyond the patch itself.