Bay Area roads earn ‘fair’ grade in annual pavement conditions report card

Pavement conditions are just “fair” on the Bay Area’s roadways, according to an annual report card from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

The report released Thursday quantifies conditions on the region’s 44,000 miles of local streets and roads and shows that a typical Bay Area thoroughfare showed “serious wear” in 2022 and probably needs to be repaired soon.

It’s the seventh year in a row the region’s streets have collectively earned a “fair” rank in the report by the MTC, which is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county Bay Area.

“The lack of progress toward our goal of bringing all the Bay Area’s streets and roads into a state of good repair is frustrating,” said MTC chairperson and Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza. “At the same time, we’re encouraged that our counties and cities have been able to prevent large-scale deterioration.”

“And the dramatic improvements seen in some of our communities, particularly those where voters have approved local taxes for street rehabilitation, show us it’s a goal that can be reached,” Pedroza said.

The roads are graded on a scale of zero to 100, with 90 or higher considered “excellent,” 80 to 89 considered “very good,” 70 to 79 is “good,” 60-69 is “fair,” 50 to 59 is “at-risk” and scores of 25 to 49 are considered “poor.”

Orinda, Cupertino, Palo Alto, Brentwood, Dublin and the unincorporated areas of Solano County all topped the list with “very good” scores.

St. Helena, Sebastopol, Vallejo, unincorporated Napa County, Petaluma and Pacifica all earned “poor” rankings.