Editorial: If affluence was ever a factor in Marin road repairs, it must stop now

Marin County officials have pledged to consider racial equity in making their decisions regarding policies, programs, personnel and the budget.

Apparently, that includes deciding what county streets are going to get repaired.

Patching potholes shouldn’t be a matter of racial equity. When a street needs fixing, the county needs to put it on the “to do” list. If that list is adjusted by the affluence of a neighborhood, the county needs to change the way it’s making those decisions.

Issues such as the condition of the road, the amount (or kind) of traffic it carries and its importance for everyday and emergency access should be the measurement of where and when road repairs are done.

It should not matter whether the street is in Marin City or Marinwood.

For many years, county street repairs have been guided by what’s called a “Pavement Condition Index” – or PCI – an engineering yardstick that ranks the condition of roads on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being a newly paved street.

On average, Marin’s road score is 65 – or “fair” – a warning that many of its streets need work.

County staff has already estimated that it is going to cost $2.6 million to repair the damage to county roads caused by the winter storms.

And as public works chiefs have warned year after year, benign neglect is costly. The longer the repairs are put off, the further they will deteriorate and the more it will cost to repair them.

Note that the P in PCI stands for pavement, not politics.

That means the condition of the street, its pressing need for repair, not its location, is the guiding factor.

That’s the way it should be.

One neighborhood’s ability to pay more taxes should not be a factor in determining where the county invests its road-repair budget.

Less-affluent neighborhoods should not have to put up with potholes while streets in richer areas get new coats of asphalt.

Every year, the county builds a priority list of road repairs within its budget. Officials should make it a priority that the list is made public before supervisors make any decisions. That upfront transparency may be the best way to address equity questions.

The county Public Works Department and the Office of Equity are working closely to make sure there are no underserved communities when it comes to deciding whose streets are getting fixed.

Equity should be a factor in making sure communities’ road-repair needs are not being ignored. But the county’s decision-making equation also needs to prioritize the condition of the roads and need for repair, the traffic demand of those streets and their importance when it comes to emergency access.

Those factors should be met, regardless of a neighborhood’s racial balance or economic status.

Surely, there are ways the county can do a lot more in terms of addressing racial and economic equity. Making it part of the county’s road-repair paradigm is probably easier than for other areas of county governance.

But it is another example that the county is keeping its promise to look through that lens in setting its priorities.