VTrans warns current funding could push very‑poor pavement from 6% to about 48%; committee debates tradeoffs

The Senate Transportation Committee heard a detailed briefing from Jeremy Reed, chief engineer for the Agency of Transportation (VTrans), on projected pavement and bridge conditions under current funding assumptions.

Reed said VTrans uses a pavement composite index (PCI) that aggregates ride quality, rutting and cracking into a single score. VTrans classifies PCI as: good (80–100), fair (65–80), poor (40–65) and very poor (under 40). He said VTrans collects condition data across the network every two years (64,000 data points at 0.05‑mile increments) and more frequently on the National Highway System (NHS).

Under a funding scenario of roughly $103 million a year for pavement and bridges, Reed said the agency projects the share of roadway in “very poor” condition — about 6% today — could grow to roughly 48% over the projection period. Reed warned the travel‑weighted average PCI (VTrans’ target is 70) would fall below that target at current funding levels.

Committee members pressed on causes and consequences. Senators and committee members asked why a temporary surge in paving (the agency reported paving about 337 miles in 2023 and a paving program budget of about $158 million that year) had not produced lasting improvements. Reed said pavement treatments are reactive and have finite lifecycles: preservation treatments cost roughly $300,000 per mile, typical mill‑and‑fill treatments can run roughly twice that, and full reconstruction/reclamation that addresses subbase failures is on the order of $1.5 million per mile. He said those unit costs mean letting pavement degrade increases future costs substantially.

Reed provided network and program context: Vermont’s state highway network is roughly 3,200 miles, so paving 300 miles per year would imply an approximate 10‑year cycle on average; at 200 miles per year the average cycle lengthens toward 15 years. The agency uses deterioration models and an asset‑management tool that runs thousands of iterations to balance limited funding against network targets.

On bridges, Reed said Vermont has a little over 2,800 long‑span structures (20 feet or more): roughly 1,100 of those are on state highways (about 300 of those on the interstate) and nearly 1,700 are town‑highway bridges. VTrans inspects long and short structures and scores three components (deck, superstructure, substructure) on a 0–10 scale; a bridge’s lowest component score sets the overall rating. VTrans told the committee its state‑bridge target is no more than 10% in poor condition and that, under the current funding projection, interstate and state bridges generally meet federal targets in the out years.

The briefing drew policy questions from committee members about alternatives to continued high paving spend: greater investment in transit, expanded bike‑and‑pedestrian infrastructure and freight rail that could reduce vehicle miles or heavy truck use; and targeted decisions about which low‑traffic roads might not sustain an engineered pavement standard. Senator White and other members pressed VTrans for data on how many paving projects incorporate “complete streets” elements and asked for clearer accounting of bike‑and‑ped funding that is currently embedded in paving or low‑grade project budgets.

Reed said VTrans does consider bike‑and‑ped accommodations in many projects and that tens of millions of dollars of those accommodations are “buried” inside paving and low‑grade project budgets rather than shown as separate line items; he said VTrans could provide more granular data. He cautioned, however, that reductions in single‑occupancy vehicle travel alone would not, by itself, necessarily yield large pavement condition improvements because environmental factors (freeze‑thaw cycles) and heavy trucks have disproportionate structural impacts on pavement.

Committee members discussed revenue and tradeoffs. The committee chair said the options are: raise new revenue (to maintain or improve current service levels); accept a status quo that leads to deterioration; or make large strategic investments in alternatives (transit, rail, bike/ped) that could reduce pavement demand. Reed and the chair warned that choices will require clear public communication about expectations and tradeoffs.

Ending

Members asked VTrans to provide more detailed breakdowns — including how many projects meet complete‑streets standards and the agency’s buried bike‑and‑ped spending — and to continue work on multi‑modal and revenue scenarios. No formal vote or legislative action was recorded in the transcript excerpt provided.