Somerville Adopts New Method for Prioritizing Street Repairs

The city of Somerville is trying to change the way it prioritizes street repairs.

In a presentation titled, "Somerville's Streets: An Overview of Policies and Plans," the city says it will use data collected by city departments to create a ranking system for making repairs.

The report says the new process, called the Neighborhood Street Reconstruction Program, will seek to improve accessibility, promote safety and traffic calming, invest in maintenance and promote economic and environmental sustainability.

"For decades, the vast majority of municipal street reconstruction, planning, and design programs have focused solely on pavement quality and moving able-bodied adults in automobiles efficiently," the report says, adding it wants to change that mindset to create "safe and dynamic urban streetscapes that adequately provide for all users."

The program will collect a variety of data, from pavement condition indexes to sidewalk and ramp inventories, pedestrian collision data and tree canopy data, the presentation says.

It will throw all that data into a data-crunching process, and the result will be a list of roads that need repairs, maintenance and reconstruction.

The city is also planning to invest an additional $1.5 million in roads and sidewalks and another additional $1 million in improvements for people with disabilities, according to an announcement about the program.

According to the presentation, here are three fun facts about Somerville's roads:

• Somerville has 93 miles of roadway
• 462 streets
• 6.5 million square feet of sidewalks