A new survey says Sioux Falls streets are in “very good” condition.
Every four years the city of Sioux Falls hires a third-party vendor to assess and analyze the conditions of its streets. Last fall the city hired Texas-based Roadway Asset Services for the project.
The company gave the city a score of 73 out of 100. The city’s goal is to always maintain a 70 – the same number it achieved in the 2015 and 2019 surveys.
Zack Thomason is the senior vice president of Roadway Asset Services. He said the score is better than it looks.
"That’s a fantastic score. On average, with all of the different surveys thar we’ve done across the country, folks typically land somewhere between a 65 and a 75. Now, that’s the average. There are some lower. There are some higher. But to put that into perspective too, less than 5% of the agencies we work with score above an 80. It is financially unachievable for most agencies to get that high in terms of condition,” Thomason said.
Additionally, Thomason said that Sioux Falls’ street network is “its single largest asset” and valued the network at over $900 million.
Wes Philips is the principal engineer for the city of Sioux Falls. He said the city has limited resources, so even when some roads aren’t in the best condition, repair crews can’t always get to them right away.
“We do use condition as a very high predictor of where we’re going to be with a mill and overlay rehab project. Sometimes there’s so many candidates that just because its rate’s low, it still might drive okay, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be there with a big project necessarily. It’s definitely an indicator, predictor when we’ll be there with a project but not the only factor,” Philips said.
He also said that there are zero streets that are "undrivable" in the city.
