On Feb. 23, Andre Brackin, El Paso County engineer, presented the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners with his department’s plans for using the 35 percent of the 1 percent Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority sales tax dedicated for road maintenance.For 2012, the county has $6.6 million in PPRTA funds to spend. The county will use it to supplement money for maintenance that comes from the county’s road and bridge fund.Brackin said a tad more than $1 million in PPRTA maintenance funds will be allocated to the county’s chip seal program to buy the aggregate and oil used in the chip seal process.The county plans to chip seal about 50 miles of road this year. Chip sealing is less expensive than asphalt and involves the application of a layer of oil, then a layer of aggregate, followed by a second layer of oil.Every three or four years, the county assesses the condition of its paved road system. The county will do an assessment this year, contracting it out for about $150,000, Brackin said. The contractor will drive the county’s paved roads with a van loaded with radar technology that provides information on the structure underneath the roads. The company will also rate the road conditions from visual and ride data, he said.PPRTA maintenance funds will also supplement the road and bridge fund for the purchase of $40,000 worth of culverts, which will be installed by county staff.More than $100,000 will go toward traffic signs, signals and the county’s road marking program.For the first time, PPRTA money ($160,000) will be added to the transportation department’s budget for the county’s dust control program, Brackin said. Colorado mandates dust control and sets the threshold at an average of 400 trips per day, but the county uses a lower initial threshold of 200 trips per day. ìIt allows for the program to look at a lot more roads,î he said.The extra PPRTA dollars will allow the county to size up the dust program based on priority, with higher priority given to collector roads having higher traffic counts. For example, Brackin said Buckboard Drive in the Falcon Heights development is in the dust control program, but Pfost Drive is not, although there are more houses on Pfost Drive.ìBy the time all the driveways have emptied out, the traffic is on Buckboard and not so much on Pfost,î Brackin said. ìWe have to prioritize the money we have.îIt costs $8,000 to $9,000 a mile in labor and materials to apply the dust control material ñ magnesium chloride, he said.ìDust abatement is just a matter of perspective. There really is only so much we can do,î said Peggy Littleton, county commissioner.Littleton brought up the potential impact of oil and gas development on the county’s road system.If and when gas exploration and/or production begin in El Paso County, the county can’t afford to pick up the cost of repairing roads damaged by oil and gas operations, she said. ìThe industry has been very good at coming to the table up in Weld County,î Littleton said. ìThey’ve been very willing partners.îOil and gas industry representatives will meet in April with the citizens and the local government designee ìto really work with them, to say this isn’t going to be a problem,î she said.ìSo far, the few dealings and coordination I have had with them (oil and gas companies) have been very positive,î Brackin said. ìThey’ve done this in many other areas, so I would expect they would come to us and … understand what our expectations and our citizens’ expectations are.ìThe expectations for the gravel road system and upkeep in this county are a little bit higher than most counties. Ours are maintained as good as or better than any other in the state.î
