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SUMMARY
The Office of the Auditor General has conducted a performance
audit of the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) pursuant to a May 22,
2006, resolution of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. This is the second in
a series of three reports and was conducted as part of the sunset review process
prescribed in Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) §41-2951 et seq. This audit
focuses on the Intermodal Transportation Division’s (Division) highway
maintenance activities including how maintenance monies are spent, the overall
highway pavement conditions, and how needed maintenance work is identified and
planned. The first audit focused on the use of consultants to design and manage
construction projects, the process for inspecting projects under construction,
and audits conducted on consultant and construction contracts. The final audit
report will address the 12 statutory sunset factors.
ADOT was established in 1974 to plan, develop, design,
construct, maintain, and operate the State’s highway transportation
infrastructure for moving people and goods by surface and air throughout
Arizona. The State’s transportation infrastructure value exceeded $9 billion as
of June 30, 2006, and the Division had 922 employee positions assigned to
highway maintenance activities. ADOT has nine districts that provide highway
maintenance services within their assigned geographic areas and four groups with
state-wide maintenance duties. In addition, eight employees in the Materials
Group measure pavement conditions and administer pavement preservation projects
done by contractors. As of December 31, 2005, Arizona’s highway system included
18,503 travel lane miles, which measure roadway capacity, or more than 27,000
maintenance lane miles including ramps, passing lanes, and shoulders. For fiscal
year 2007, ADOT has a total of $124.3 million in funding for highway
maintenance, and plans to spend $103.3 million for pavement preservation.
Maintenance monies support numerous
activities (see pages 11 through 17)
The Division provides various road-related and pavement
maintenance. Legislative appropriations for maintenance—approximately $118.6
million in fiscal year 2007—represent approximately 10 percent of ADOT’s total
highway monies, and almost 9 of 10 of these dollars are spent on nonpavement
features and other costs such as employee leave, supervision, and utilities.
Nonpavement features are extensive including roadside items such as highway
shoulders, drainage structures, guardrails, and fences; traffic control features
such as signs, signals, and pavement markings; landscaping and vegetation; and
rest areas. Although the Division’s maintenance crews perform most maintenance
activities, division expenditures for contractor-provided maintenance have
increased. Specifically, the Division spent $17.5 million on contractor-provided
maintenance in fiscal year 2006, compared to $4.1 million in fiscal year 1997.
Expenditures for pavement preservation projects come
primarily from federal and state monies made available through ADOT’s Five-Year
Transportation Facilities Construction Program. Contractors perform these
projects, which usually involve replacing 1 to 3 inches of pavement or
overlaying existing pavement with 1 to 3 inches of asphalt. These projects are
intended to extend the life of pavement before more costly reconstruction is
needed. In fiscal year 2006, ADOT estimates it spent $77.3 million on 25
pavement preservation projects for an estimated 399 lane miles and plans to
spend $103.3 million for pavement preservation, which includes $5.5 million for
preventive maintenance, in fiscal year 2007.
ADOT also receives monies that are earmarked for highway
maintenance in Maricopa County. In November 2004, Maricopa County voters
approved Proposition 400, which extended the County’s half-cent transportation
excise tax, of which a portion is allocated to ADOT for regional landscape
maintenance and litter pickup. The Division received $5.7 million each year in
fiscal years 2006 and 2007 and used these monies for landscape maintenance,
litter control, and pavement sweeping.
Most Arizona pavement rated satisfactory
(see pages 19 through 24)
Most road pavement in Arizona’s state highway system has
received satisfactory ratings, and overall ratings were higher in 2005 than in
1995.1 Well-maintained pavement provides several benefits, including increased
safety, fewer auto repair expenses, improved quality of the overall road
network, and higher user comfort.2 The Division evaluates pavement quality using
various measures including the International Roughness Index (IRI), a nationally
accepted measure of road smoothness. Arizona’s roads compared favorably with
contiguous states’, and ratings generally showed improvement in 2005 compared to
1995. Interstate roads, which often have the highest traffic volume, received
better ratings than state routes and U.S. highway roads, which have a lower
percentage of high traffic volume segments. Finally, a consumer satisfaction
survey showed that Arizona residents are generally satisfied with highway
maintenance efforts, but still want improvements in all maintenance areas.
Division should improve method to determine maintenance
needs and allocate maintenance dollars (see pages 25 through 35)
The Division should improve how it identifies annual
maintenance needs and allocates maintenance monies to maximize the state highway
system’s life expectancy, operational efficiency, appearance, and safety. ADOT
has received increased funding for maintenance, but because of increased
associated costs and maintenance demands, the Division reported that it has
reduced its ability to provide adequate highway system maintenance, such as
pavement preventive maintenance activities. Highway maintenance expenditures
increased 56.6 percent between fiscal years 1997 and 2006, averaging a 5.1
percent annual increase. At the same time, asphalt costs increased 171 percent,
traffic volume increased by 59 percent, and travel lane miles increased by 8
percent. Division officials said the majority of the new miles were in urban
areas and are therefore more costly to maintain because of heavy traffic volume
and landscaping, median barriers, lighting, and other features. In addition,
some maintenance crews are affected by an increased number of emergency
incidents that reduce time and money available for planned maintenance because
the crews must respond to the incidents and repair damaged features, such as
guardrails and fences, in a timely manner.
The Division does not have integrated, systematic, state-wide
processes to identify maintenance needs. The districts plan annual work based on
their historical activity and current budget, not on an analysis and
prioritization of everything that needs to be done. In addition, the Division
has not established adequate criteria such as maintenance and inspection
frequency guidelines to help districts plan needed maintenance. Further, lacking
an adequate process for identifying and prioritizing state-wide needs, ADOT
generally allocates maintenance funding on a historical basis rather than by
documented needs. This could result in one district’s inability to complete
higher-priority work while another district completes lower-priority work.
Further, this method does not consider roadway miles, traffic volume,
population, and other factors that may affect district maintenance workload.
The Division is developing four computerized systems to help
measure its maintenance needs, but these systems will not identify all needed
maintenance. The Division should implement a more systematic approach for
addressing maintenance needs by establishing frequency schedules, when
applicable, for maintenance activities; identifying all needed maintenance
state-wide; estimating monies and resources required to perform the needed
maintenance; providing a prioritization method to ensure that the most important
and cost-effective maintenance is performed within resource constraints; and
providing a systematic method for allocating resources to meet maintenance
needs.
Other pertinent information (see pages 37 through 39)
The Division uses a combination of paid contractors, the
Adopt-a-Highway program, prison labor, and in-house maintenance crews to provide
litter control along the state highway system. In the greater Phoenix area,
where a Maricopa County excise tax provides monies for landscape maintenance and
litter pickup, the Division plans litter pickup for each roadway once a week.
Most of this work is done by private contractors paid with the excise tax
monies, augmented by the Adopt-a-Highway sponsor program. The Tucson and
Flagstaff districts also use the Adopt-a-Highway sponsor program, but on a much
smaller scale than the Phoenix area. In other districts, ADOT’s maintenance
crews do only spot litter pickup on a public complaint basis or when they
observe debris on roadways that may pose safety hazards. The Adopt-a-Highway
volunteer program supplements maintenance crew litter pickup in the rural
districts.
Read full report in Acrobat PDF format
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