Plano staff: aging streets and nearby construction can worsen traffic; city to stagger projects
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Summary
A staff member said more than half of Plano’s roads are over 50 years old and that non-road construction can affect traffic patterns; staff said proactive pavement management and scheduling aim to extend pavement life and avoid simultaneous arterial closures.
Staff member, a staff member, said Plano faces compounding traffic and maintenance challenges because many projects that affect roadways are not strictly road construction.
“Remember, not all that construction is road construction. It could be parks median projects, traffic intersection improvements, screening wall replacements, or private development,” Staff member said. “All those undertakings can impact traffic patterns along major roads.”
The staff member added a warning about the age of the network: “More than 50% of our roads were built more than 50 years ago. The design life of concrete streets is 30 to 40 years.”
Why it matters: older pavement typically requires more frequent repairs or reconstruction. The staff member said the city uses proactive pavement management to extend the useful life of streets and to limit simultaneous work on parallel arterials so drivers have alternate routes.
According to the staff member, the goal is to coordinate projects and maintenance so that “parallel arterial roadways are not under construction at the same time to provide alternative routes.” The remarks framed pavement preservation as both an asset-management challenge and a traffic-management one, since non-street projects (for example, park or private development work) can disrupt traffic on major corridors.
Discussion only: the transcript shows this as an informational presentation; no formal motion, vote, or schedule was recorded in the provided excerpt. The staff member described the problem, cited the age of the pavement stock and the 30-to-40-year design life for concrete streets, and described coordination goals to reduce simultaneous arterial closures.
What’s next: staff described proactive pavement management and construction coordination as the intended approaches to reduce traffic disruption and extend pavement life. The transcript did not specify timelines, budget amounts, or required approvals.