Escambia County Goes High Tech To Determine Road Pavement Priorities

December 18, 2011

Escambia County is working on a high-tech mapping project that will help officials determine which roads need to be repaved first.

Escambia County has entered into a $228,498 contract with Transmap Corporation to map about 1,300 miles of already paved roadways. The results will allow Escambia County to rank each roadway by condition so that a paving priority can be determined.

The maps will include a 360-degree view of all roadways and right of ways, including images from a dedicated pavement camera showing every inch of pavement in the county. The end result will be loaded into a pavement management database that will show, among other details, the condition of pavement by roadway.

Pictured top: A mapping vehicle from Transmap Corporation maps Highway 99 north of Crabtree Church Road recently. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.

Comments

24 Responses to “Escambia County Goes High Tech To Determine Road Pavement Priorities”

  1. justafact on December 20th, 2011 4:36 pm

    You can bet one of our fine county scamissioners
    has a friend at Transmap.

  2. deadmansghost on December 19th, 2011 7:47 pm

    i wonder how much the ghost buster mobile cost us. if you guys can’t see how corrupt and rediculous this is, we our done for.

  3. Char on December 19th, 2011 12:27 pm

    I have watched them pave roads over and over, while I and many more
    still live on dirty filthy dirt roads with no drainage.
    I have asthma and believe me that dirt is a huge problem. Children
    in this neighborhood probably have asthma and parents don’t even
    know it. You see them all the time sneezing and runny nosed during
    the spring and fall when it’s not cold season. Coughing and carrying on
    during change of season is a good indication of environmental issues
    and asthma.

    WHY NOT PAVE EVERY ROAD IN THE COUNTY FOR THE SAKE OF
    THE CHILDREN, rather than re-paving roads that barely need it
    this year or next.

    COMMISSIONERS AND COUNTY ROAD DEPARTMENT, I ASK YOU
    TO HAVE A HEART AND GET REAL …..THE COUNTY NEEDS REAL
    PEOPLE.

  4. Driven on December 19th, 2011 11:45 am

    Sounds like a way to just waste time so that they’re not actually paving the roads…now they’re are just planning to pave the roads…what a joke.

    County’s going backwards its seems.

  5. me on December 19th, 2011 6:01 am

    I think they should pave all the dirt roads first.

  6. 24/7 on December 18th, 2011 10:15 pm

    It doesn’t take a fancy truck with all the fancy equipment or even a genius to figure out what roads need to be serviced and maintained.. They could have saved that money and put it towards fixing the problems…

  7. Throw the bums out on December 18th, 2011 8:37 pm

    I agree with bob….western escambia AL is the worst. Zero political leadership and all the $ goes to the Brewton cronies. Decent intelligent candidates for office can’t get their message out because of the journalistically negligent rags that calls themselves newspapers in the Atmore area….some roads, like 18th avenue are so bad that people have started driving on the right of way to avoid the potholes. It’s time for real leadership over there.

  8. Retired Grainman on December 18th, 2011 6:08 pm

    First there was the 5 cent gas tax to “pave the dirt roads’ in the county…let’s just roll that into the general budget. Next the fire tax for insurance savings? (Not my insurance.) Then the sales tax for all county improvements. Makes me think of the movie Field of Dreams in a way……TAX IT AND THEY WILL WASTE IT!!!!

  9. huh on December 18th, 2011 5:45 pm

    Seems like a political favor of some sort, these roads never get paved until they already have potholes. Do we need to spend over 200K to detect a pothole? really?

  10. Well on December 18th, 2011 3:56 pm

    What does it matter which road needs repairs the most?
    Those that complain the most get the most.

    Need cheese with that wHine?

  11. Bob on December 18th, 2011 3:05 pm

    Be thankful for what you have. I too have signed over much real estate and even when my neighbors wouldnt I gave it all. Not one single road that effects me has been paved,but you ought to travel in the west end of Escambia Alabama The roads are the worst in the southeastern U.S.

  12. David Huie Green on December 18th, 2011 2:52 pm

    REGARDING:
    “- – - everyone knows the condition of our county financially so I would just be wasting my fingers typing”

    Years back the county commissioners turned down an offer from Anderson-Columbia to finance paving all the roads. They said they could get a better interest rate and besides, they didn’t need to borrow the money because they already had all the money required from the Local Option Sales Tax to pave all the roads in the county. They just didn’t want to spend it for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that they could use our money for other things as long as we continued to pay while begging them to keep their word.

    More money has continued to come in since then; a little of it was spent on the paving for which it was promised. They abandoned many roads since then, saying if the owners wouldn’t give them enough right of way to suit their needs, they would just stop maintaining them altogether.

    David for honest politicians,
    Santa Claus and the tooth fairy

  13. sye on December 18th, 2011 11:23 am

    I’ve waited for years for Fairground rd in molino to be paved..signed paperwork about 5 or six yrs ago, thought my mom would get to see it paved before she passed in 2009. She had alot of breathen problems and i believe alot of it had to do with the dust comming in from the vents.. She never got to see that dream and looks like i never will either…

  14. Don't Trust Them on December 18th, 2011 10:38 am

    360-degree views. Pictures of your house, my house and everybodies house. Big Brother is watching! Plus, who’s brother-in-law owns this company?

  15. Just me... on December 18th, 2011 10:00 am

    Oman, wow! I agree with Steve, lets pave them all first! I will never understand all this political stuff!!!! I could go on an on but everyone knows the condition of our county financially so I would just be wasting my fingers typing!

  16. sassey on December 18th, 2011 9:59 am

    that”s right thompson and crary rd need to be pave all of the other roads have been paved where are they on the list?????Those two roads need it bad

  17. David Huie Green on December 18th, 2011 9:37 am

    Not griping — since I never gripe — but I wonder how much of this information is already in the Googlemobile database and how much Google would’ve charged for it.

    David for better roads

  18. irs on December 18th, 2011 9:32 am

    oh wow 228,000 to look at roads.the workers can look at roads and tell you which roads need paving.see they dont have no money but all the sudden the can find money to waste like this.workers cant even get a raise but they can pay a company money like this.who is buddies or cousins of these people.we pay taxes and we have no say so in how money is spent.clean house i would say. we need red lights at alot of intersections and they are not even considered.
    we need jobs in this city and thats not even looked at either.look around people and see how many homes are vacant.no jobs no homes to live in.i know a few of county workers that are in forecloser with there homes because of taxes and insurance. they need to get the picture on gettting jobs in here and quit wasting money.

  19. Friction against the machine on December 18th, 2011 8:52 am

    Wow….why couldn’t Escambia County AL do this? Oh yeah, road paving is a source of political favoritism….voters get what they ask for.

  20. jim bob billyjoe on December 18th, 2011 8:40 am

    I seem to remember seeing a similar vehicle running the roads in about 2003. I guess all the needed repairs have been made by that run!?!

  21. Sandra on December 18th, 2011 7:10 am

    That van will need a front-end alignment when it finishes mapping hwy 99! lol

  22. Baebae on December 18th, 2011 6:28 am

    I have often wondered why they did not do this years ago….similar technology has been used on the railroads for more than 30 years …it deterined what tracks across a system of railroads were the worse…and then made a priority list using the data it found and of course it used other data such as how much train traffic was on the same portion ..So you may think that a road is terrible…but it wont get fixed because there is not as much traffic on it as it is in another location thats not quite as bad….but we will see…we welcome new technology anytime

  23. steve on December 18th, 2011 5:42 am

    Repaved. Lets work on getting them all paved first.

  24. Jane on December 18th, 2011 4:59 am

    So driving over the ruts and pot holes isn’t good enough? Spending lots of money on something “high-tech” because it says it is better? How about a stop light at Hwy. 29 and 97? This intersection has way too many accidents for the number of people using it!