Improving Napa’s streets and sidewalks for our residents is one of our top priorities here at the City. Napa’s streets were once ranked as the 5th worst in California, with a Pavement Condition Index score in the fifties (out of 100). Now, our score has surpassed 70, largely due to the success of our Local Streets Paving Program, which aims to pave 10 miles of local roadways each year. Now that Measure T is in place, we will be able to address larger streets like Trancas Street and Redwood Road, and the next five years will see a vast improvement in the condition of our streets. You can see in the image below that we have progressed well into the “green” as we continue to improve our pavement conditions. You can compare Napa to other cities on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s website at http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/street-pavement-condition. (Please note that their most recent online data is from 2017).
With that said, we understand that there might be some misinformation out there about road repair and maintenance here in Napa. We wanted to take this opportunity to address what we are doing to improve the quality of our roads, be good stewards of our resources and improve and maintain our infrastructure for our entire community. When at all possible, we work to coordinate infrastructure repairs and upgrades (water, sewer, storm drain system, PG&E, etc.) prior to paving streets and replacing and repairing sidewalks. There are of course, roadways outside of our jurisdiction, that are the responsibility of Caltrans and other agencies to maintain, such as State Route 29, Silverado Trail (SR 121) and SR 221. Whenever we can, we try to coordinate with other agencies and utilities on larger projects to minimize disruption and maximize these infrastructure improvements. There are times when it appears that newly paved streets are impacted by construction shortly after being paved. At times, this must be done when emergency repair of underground infrastructure, such as water mains and other utilities, becomes necessary.
We also acknowledge that the number of vehicle miles driven has increased over the years, which means the impact on our roads is greater than it used to be, and until recently, we have been without the equivalent increase in gas tax for Napa, as well as many other agencies, to be able to adequately maintain roads. The recent passage of SB 1 is an attempt to bring more gas tax dollars to agencies to help with that maintenance.
We take the maintenance of our streets and sidewalks very seriously here in Napa, and are committed to improving our neighborhoods and making Napa a better place to live and work for our residents every day.