Roadway maintenance the topic at Monday's Democratic luncheon
The featured speakers at Monday's Democratic luncheon will be Chris Martinovich, PE, Transportation Manager at Carson City Public Works.
He is project manager for Invest In Your Neighborhood Streets! Preserve Carson City Roads, a campaign designed to educate Carson City drivers about current roadway conditions, preservation solutions, potential funding sources, and what will happen if sufficient investments are not made to preserve our roads. Chris' presentation will be a status report on progress the project team has made to date, and will provide context with which Carson City voters can evaluate the merits of ballot measure CC-1, which would eliminate the City's tax on diesel fuel.
Where do we stand today? Simply stated, Carson City roads are failing. The condition of the City’s pavement infrastructure has been declining at a rapid rate, particularly on neighborhood streets, which represent 71% of the City’s street network. Pavement condition on neighborhood streets has declined by 9% in the last five years. A 2022 study estimated the annual funding shortfall to be nearly $21 million, and the shortfall is only expected to grow with decreased fuel demand and increased construction costs.
Our roads are the lifeline that connects people to where they need to go, be it shopping, school, work, church or home. Without sufficiently maintained roadways, the connection gets bumpy and more difficult to navigate. Potholes, cracks and uneven pavement don't merely cause annoyance and delay, they also contribute to increased wear and tear on tires and overall car upkeep, not to mention the safety and mobility of cyclists, pedestrians, and transit users.
We need to act soon to find a sustainable solution that will save our roads. The City is exploring several funding options to preserve and maintain Carson City’s roads and neighborhood streets before they get to the point of no repair. Measures such as patching or slurry seals preserve roadways for many years, eliminating the need to be fully repaved. These incremental preservation approaches are not only cost-effective, they also lessen the impact to those who live on or around roadways being repaired. Once a road passes the point of preservation, costly reconstruction becomes the only path forward.
After earning a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2009, Chris Martinovich became a project manager for Jacobs Engineering, where he worked for over a decade. In January 2020 became a Carson City traffic engineer, and in November 2021 he was promoted to Transportation Manager. In that capacity, he oversees the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC), which establishes priorities and recommends appropriate funding for transportation improvement projects within Carson City. He also manages the Carson Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO), the agency designated by the state as responsible for metropolitan transportation planning in the Carson City urbanized area, consisting of Carson City, northern Douglas County, and western Lyon County.
As a professional engineer and Carson City native, Chris is eager to work with community organizations and individuals to resolve the funding issues surrounding roadway maintenance. His main point of emphasis is that further delays will only increase the cost of bringing all our roadways up to an acceptable and sustainable state of repair.
Sponsored by the Democratic Men's Committee, this event is scheduled for 1:00 PM on Monday, October 31st, and can be attended either in person at Black Bear Diner, inside Max Casino, or online via Zoom. The presentation will begin after all the lunch orders have been taken, around 1:30. Those wishing to be on distribution for luncheon Zoom links should contact Rich Dunn at richdunn@aol.com.
- Carson City
- Announcements
- Black Bear Diner
- CAMPO
- Carson Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
- CC-1
- Chris Martinovich
- Civil Engineering
- Democratic luncheon
- Democratic Men's Committee
- diesel fuel
- Invest In Your Neighborhood Streets
- Jacobs Engineering
- maintenance
- Max Casino
- Men's Committee
- Monday
- October 17th
- patching
- reconstruction
- Regional Transportation Commission
- Rich Dunn
- Roadway
- RTC
- slurry seals
- traffic engineer
- Transportation Manager
- University of Nevada
- Zoom
- public works
- reno