The City of Lawton has developed a Pavement Maintenance Program Guide that Councilman George Gill contends is “a Cadillac document.”
This has been in progress for more than a year,” he told the council on Jan. 28. Contents of the guide include:
• Pavement assessments: measure pavement thickness, material properties, lead-bearing capacity, and visual appearance.
• Maintenance strategies: routine maintenance, preventive maintenance, rehabilitation and reconstruction (including localized and joint rehabilitation, progressively thicker overlays, panel replacement).
• Roadway segment selection and prioritization.
• Quick turnaround on small-scale plans.
• Construction management.
• Cyclical, routine, and typical maintenance operations.
• Safety and traffic management.
• Performance metrics and reporting (key performance indicators will be established to measure the success of the program and the condition of the pavement network relative to the City of Lawton’s monetary investments in the program).
• Funding and budget allocation (identify funding sources and their amounts, including federal grants, state allocations, CIP funds, and other revenue streams such as development and impact fees).
While reviewing the pavement maintenance guide, the council also discussed tentative plans to establish a “Streets, Bridges, Building, and Development Review Committee,” and perhaps abolish the Traffic Commission and incorporate its duties into the proposed new committee.
“We’re making progress at such a rate” – on streets, water and sewer lines, and traffic control improvements, for example – “I’m concerned that when we’re gone things will revert back to the way they were,” Mayor Stan Booker said. “In the future, 15 to 20 years from now, Lawtonians will need to know how far we came from where we were, and what we accomplished.”
A simple policy change would not be sufficient, because one or more future city councils can amend or scrap a policy.
“If you want something to have a truly lasting impact,” City Manager John Ratliff said, incorporate it into the City Charter – which would require a vote of Lawton residents, he noted.