The Town of Eastham was faced with progressively declining groundwater quality in the community’s six thousand private wells resulting in the Town retaining Environmental Partners (EP) to provide engineering services related to development, permitting, design, and construction of the new Town-wide municipal water supply, impacting town-owned roadways.
In recognition of the water construction schedule developed, EP understood that the entire road network of the Eastham community would be disrupted over an eight-year period. As a result, the Town retained EP to prepare a comprehensive Pavement Management plan and Sign Inventory town-wide in order to assist in planning their Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to support the Eastham community and stakeholders.
EP compiled data from multiple sources including the Town’s 2012 Flyover Planimetric database, and GIS data from the Town and the on-going New Municipal Water System construction (also being completed by EP). Each roadway was broken into road segments depending on intercepting streets or variation of pavement conditions to inventory existing conditions.
The project advanced with assessing roadway pavement conditions, taking into consideration both original roadway pavement and trenches along each town-owned facility including failure type, severity, and extent. Roadway phasing was dictated by pavement condition and the schedule for water main installation, while providing adequate time for trench settlement. Approximate construction costs were estimated and customized based on Town input.
After coordination with the Town, the final Capital Improvement Plan, released in 2016 and titled Pavement Management Program Report, detailed all work, assessments, analyses, recommendations, and prioritization provided and suggested by EP to support, identify, and clarify what roadway work needed to be done both separate from and in conjunction with the ongoing municipal water system work. The proposed CIP focused on accommodating and reacting to the phasing and schedule of the water main installations so that when feasible, roadway work could be addressed after the water main installations and adequate trench settling have taken place.
A Sign Inventory was also performed in order to bring the Town into compliance with the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) mandate regarding management of sign retroreflectivity and identified necessary signage improvements along roadways being reconstructed. The inventory included investigation of compliance with local ordinance and Special Speed Regulations. Understanding the importance for signs to be visible and recognizable, each sign was also reviewed for compliance with the FHWA Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) including legend, size, sheeting material, and retroreflectivity. A full assessment of compliant and non-compliant signs was provided to the town.
The Asset Management services provided to the Town of Eastham worked hand in hand with the on-going town-wide water distribution system project in planning large scaled oversight of roadway pavement, street signage, and laid out programs to maintain and improve town assets in a phased manner that integrate into the water system construction contracts.
