Letter to the Editor: Agoura Hills Roads Paved with Good Intentions

From Ramiro S. Adeva III, Director of Public Works/City Engineer, city of Agoura Hills:

On September 11th, an article was published in the Agoura Hills Patch titled, “Poor Road Conditions Are Costing You.” Specifically, the article stated that according to a report released by an independent national transportation group, poor road conditions in the Los Angeles-area cost motorists $2,458 per year, which include costs associated with vehicle repairs, and lost time and fuel due to congestion-related delays.

Furthermore, the article reports that $44 billion a year fall on California motorists to deal with the poor road conditions, of which LA roadways are the worst.

Without spending time to research the factual merit to any of these figures, we simply feel the need to highlight the fact that there are agencies like the City of Agoura Hills, that spend significant time planning and budgeting for projects that seek to ensure the roadways within our city limits are kept in good condition.

For example, Agoura Hills’ City Council made a policy decision years back to prepare a 10-year plan of asphalt overlays that would achieve a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of 70 or better for all the streets citywide. As such, the City budgets between $800,000 and $1 million dollars for each annual overlay of streets to meet this goal.

In addition, Agoura Hills has two contracts in place (one with Los Angeles County Public Works and one with a private construction firm) to do routine maintenance of the city’s streets to promptly address issues like potholes and severe “alligator” cracking.

Furthermore, last fiscal year, Agoura Hills added its newest dimension to its plan for efficient-response to public concerns by introducing an online/mobile system known as “SeeClickFix,” which allows problems to be reported quickly to the appropriate city-staff person, who in turn can respond quickly by dispatching public works crews, if necessary, in a timely fashion.

It is efforts like these that we want to highlight in order to provide needed clarification and/or distinction in response to the article for those agencies like Agoura Hills that actually take a proactive approach to identify and repair problematic road conditions to ensure that the safety and quality of life for our residents, businesses, and visitors remains paramount. “