The costs for street repair are going up as funding for maintenance is dropping.

Money for street restoration projects has come from taxes on gasoline and from state and federal transportation grants. 

The city’s current budget for street-related projects includes projected revenues from funds such as an 18-cent-per-gallon fuel tax. One fund from the gasoline tax is estimated to bring in $700,000 a year to the city, down $100,000 from previous years. Another fund from the gas tax is estimated to generate $500,000 this year.

A transportation act also gets its money from the 18-cent-per-gallon tax. In the past, it produced $3 million a year. This year it will generate $1.5 million. In the past, money remaining after public transit needs were met by the city could be used for street maintenance. This act was rewritten by the state Legislature so that by 2014 it can only be used for public transit needs.

Public Works Director Mark Watkins said the Prop. 42 gasoline tax money, another source of street repair revenue, is a “very volatile funding source.” The state can borrow this money for its budget needs but must pay it back to the city within three years. The city is expecting $1.2 million to come back to the city from previous state borrowing, Watkins said.

State and federal grant funding varies depending on federal highway bills and state bond funding. In the recent past, the city received about $2.5 million for pavement maintenance from federal bills and $4 million from a state bond measure. 

Future federal highway funding is anticipated to remain about the same at $2.5 million, but additional state bond funding isn’t expected.   As gas tax revenues drop, construction costs continue to increase. From 1991 to 2003, the price for asphalt was $53 per ton, but for the city’s last project in 2008, asphalt was $107 per ton. 

—Nancy Needham