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Tooele County completes lidar pavement assessment; proposes shared procurement for neighboring towns
Summary
Tooele County roads staff reviewed a countywide mobile lidar pavement assessment May 15, reporting about 75% of maintained roads rate from marginal to excellent and roughly 25% rate poor or very poor. County staff proposed a joint COG solicitation so smaller towns can buy into the same survey at lower per‑mile cost.
Tooele County public works staff presented the results of a countywide mobile lidar pavement assessment to the Council of Governments on May 15 and proposed using the COG to extend the same survey to neighboring municipalities to reduce per‑mile costs and create consistent pavement condition data.
Jed Bell, Tooele County roads director, said the county contracted a mobile LIDAR and imaging survey to collect pavement distress data and build a GIS database used to compute pavement condition index (PCI) scores. “What we did is, we did a county wide survey of all of the county roads that we maintain,” Bell said. He described the vendor truck’s LIDAR and 3‑D imaging equipment and said the per‑mile cost in their procurement ran about $150–$250 per mile depending on economy of scale.
Bell summarized the condition results: “About 75% of our inventory is from marginal to excellent, and then the 25% is very poor and poor.” He said roads in the “very poor” category typically require thick overlays or reconstruction, while marginal to good segments can improve with less expensive preventive treatments. Bell identified two long stretches in the very‑poor category by name: a route he called “Imapaw” (about 35 miles) and a parallel road near I‑80 locally referred to as “I‑40” (about 44 miles), and said the county is pursuing grants and targeted maintenance for those corridors.
The assessment produced GIS polygons, segment‑level PCI scores, video/LIDAR image playback and a vendor web portal. Bell said the county uploaded the vendor’s Excel output into its own Esri GIS and uses the data to prioritize treatments and to meet the state auditor’s condition‑data requirements. The county finished the mapping and database in December 2024 and is using the results in a five‑year pavement maintenance plan.
Bell and Adam Graft (roads department) described subscription options: the vendor provides a one‑year web subscription for about $2,500 that allows interactive video review and segment‑level inspection; the county also retains the Excel output for its GIS. Bell emphasized the tool is an aid, not a replacement for staff inspection: “If I’m going to determine I’m going to spend a hundred thousand dollars repairing and I’m gonna go to my council and I’m gonna ask them for a hundred thousand to repair this road, I ain’t going off that picture. I’m driving the road myself.”
Speakers from several small towns said piggybacking on a single solicitation could reduce costs; the county estimated a joint procurement might permit broader coverage for roughly $50,000 more (county estimate for unspecified coverage). County staff offered to prepare a consolidated COG application if member jurisdictions want to participate; multiple city representatives said they were interested but did not record a formal vote at the meeting.
Ending: The assessment gives Tooele County a consistent baseline to prioritize maintenance, comply with state audit expectations and seek grants. County staff said they can run a joint COG solicitation to extend the service to smaller municipalities and can provide spreadsheet exports for jurisdictions that prefer to host the data in their own GIS.
