Herriman's pavement standard of 75 has no price, and no score since 2024

Herriman does not treat its streets as an afterthought. In 2020 it hired Infrastructure Management Services to scan every public road with laser cameras and test major streets for deflection, then let that data set the treatment list 1. The logic is on the city's streets page: a preservation treatment goes down two to three years after a road is built, then further treatments every five to seven years, because a bituminous seal on a sound road costs a fraction of a rebuild 2. The council hardened it in November 2025, banning non-emergency cuts for three years in new or reconstructed streets and requiring full-width repaving where a street was treated within two 3. On its own measure the programme has delivered: the network's average PCI rose from 69.8 in 2020 to 74 in 2024, roads rated good went from 44 per cent to 72 per cent, and poor and very poor segments fell below 2 per cent 14.

Herriman's own standard is higher than the score it reports. The strategic plan updated on 11 February 2026 commits the city to "dedicate sufficient resources to street maintenance to maintain a PCI rating of 75," and asks capital planning to program failing infrastructure five years out 5. The 74 was reported in May 2025 from the 2024 evaluation 4. We could find no later published score.

The money for that standard is one line. The council adopted fiscal years 2027 and 2028 as Ordinance 2026-14 on 18 June 2026 6. Pavement Management rises from $2,030,500 estimated for fiscal 2026 to $2,225,000 for fiscal 2027, an increase of $194,500, and to $2,825,000 in fiscal 2028 7. The budget's own note moves $700,000 of the 2027 line to the Rosecrest Road rehabilitation, leaving $1,525,000 for preservation everywhere else 7.

Staff put numbers to that choice in 2021. The presentation projected a ten-year PCI of 56.1 if the then-current $750,000 held, 65 at $2.5 million, which it called controlled PCI, and 70 at $3.3 million, called steady state 1. It added that the road maintenance and preservation budget "will need to increase, as growth continues" 1. Fiscal 2027's $2,225,000 sits below both higher scenarios, and the preservation share after Rosecrest well below them.

That comparison is not proof of neglect, and the city's answer was right. Staff told the council in 2021 that the consultant's unit rates "may be higher than what Herriman City could obtain" 1. They were. Herriman put the money on the right roads and the PCI rose, which the model did not predict at this funding level 14. The city has earned the benefit of the doubt on how it buys pavement.

What the record does not show is coverage. Herriman describes a five-to-seven-year cycle 2 and reports an average, not the square footage treated in a year or the streets treated. The 2020 scan measured 36,551,699 square feet of asphalt, up from 30,517,617 in 2016 1. At the unit prices in the city's own June 2026 agreement with Riverton, $0.57 a square foot for microsurface and $0.62 for GSB-88 medium sealer 8, $1,525,000 buys about 2.7 million square feet, the equivalent of a thirteen-year cycle. Lighter seals cost less and city crews do patching out of the $761,200 personnel and $798,510 operating lines 7, so the true figure is better — but that is our estimate, not the city's, and the network grows: fiscal 2028 carries $1,380,000 to build the Soleil Hills Phase 3 road 7, asphalt the pavement line will maintain for decades.

Our judgement concerns the decision, not anyone's purpose. On 18 June 2026 the council adopted a budget that funds a standard of 75 without saying what 75 costs, and its road capital plan for the two years holds three lines: the Rosecrest rehabilitation, a reimbursement of $338,000 on 11800 South, and the Soleil Hills road 7. None is a schedule of preservation work. The February plan asks the capital programme to look five years ahead 5; for pavement, that programme is a dollar total, not a list of streets.

A resident cannot learn from any of it whether their street is due. The city offers a live map to watch a plow 9 and a form to report a pothole 2, but no treatment schedule explaining why the pothole is there. The gap a resident feels is not the arterial the programme treats; it is the residential street in its twelfth year with no published date for its next seal.

Four things would change our mind, and none needs new money. Publish the annual PCI from the same scan method, so 75 can be checked. Publish the square footage treated each year and the year each street is next due. State the annual square footage required to hold 75 and what it costs, then fund it or lower the standard to what the money buys. And report PCI by area, so residents see where the condition is worst rather than an average across 314 lane miles 2.

This page asked the same question of Riverton on 18 October, South Jordan on 23 October and Bluffdale on 28 October, and each had a defence 10. Herriman's is the strongest: it bought data before it bought pavement, and its data says the pavement improved. It is also the only one of the four that wrote its own target down and reported against it once.