Public works reports near-completion of 2011 road-repaving bond programs

Edmund Lee, public works project manager, told the Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee that the 2011 Road Repaving and Street Safety general obligation bond — a program the presentation described as roughly $250 million — is in its closeout phase and has met or exceeded many of its original goals.

Lee said the six program buckets included street repaving and reconstruction (about $149 million planned), streetscape and bicycle/pedestrian safety (about $50 million), traffic-signal and street improvements through MTA (about $20 million), accessible curb ramps ($14 million), accessible sidewalks ($8 million) and street structures ($7 million). He reported specific delivery results: a goal to resurface 2,275 blocks yielded 1,436 blocks paved; the curb-ramp program exceeded its target with 1,563 ramps completed against a 1,350 goal; the sidewalk inspection-and-repair program (SERP) completed 646 locations of a 600 goal; and an accelerated sidewalk-abatement effort covered 155,544 square feet.

Lee told the committee that in many cases lower-than-expected contract bids and market fluctuations produced savings that allowed more projects to be completed, though some projects experienced change orders and cost overruns. As of October, staff reported roughly 98.8% of bond appropriations expended, and Lee said the office projects a small portion of funds will remain when reconciliation across multiple funding sources (for example, PUC and MTA co-funded projects) is complete.

Committee members asked whether remaining balances would be spent and whether the office could ease later closeout by moving small unexpended sums into active projects. Lee said staff must reconcile multi-agency funding sources before moving any remaining bond funds and that some internal reprogramming is possible only after closeout steps and accounting between partner agencies are completed.

Next steps: staff will continue project closeout and reconciliation and return updates as needed; no formal vote or policy change was taken on bond reallocation at this meeting.