All of the roadwork for Build Up Aurora — a program to fix roads in need of repair in the city — was completed last month, beating the program’s deadline for the work to be done and right in time for the brunt of the winter season.

The program, with a goal to improve roads in 35 Aurora neighborhoods, began in early 2023 after City Council approved a plan to fund the improvements. The intent was to get all of the roads identified as fair, or below, to at least “good” condition, according to city spokesperson Michael Brannen.

All roads the city maintains are now rated good or better, Brannen said.

The finished work came ahead of schedule, with the original deadline for the completion of the project sometime in 2024, he said. However, due to favorable weather conditions and other factors, the city finished the work in November. 

Councilmembers decided to set aside transportation funds so that all roads, including main and residential roads, stay in good condition, Brannen said. Thanks to the program, the city is in a better position to ensure roads stay in good condition, he said.

Many of the roadways addressed had not had large-ticket maintenance done on them for 10 or more years, according to Aurora Public Works engineering supervisor Nicholas Johnson.

In most years, street maintenance is funded through the city’s general fund — which is generally put toward arterial and collector roads.

Aurora Councilmember Dustin Zvonek, the program’s sponsor, presented the idea for Build Up Aurora as a non-councilmember about three years ago, with the goal of closing a two-decade funding gap for road maintenance, he said.

The funding gap started around the 2008 recession, when government in Aurora cut funding for roads, since that was one of the easiest cuts to make at the time, Zvonek said.

Once he was elected to council, Zvonek worked with his colleagues to borrow additional funding for Build Up Aurora to restore frequent maintenance to neighborhood roads.

From 2023 to 2027, the city will invest $165.5 million into road maintenance — with portions of residential streets completed during each year of work.

The work in 2023 was paid for using Certificates of Participation, which use tax-exempt lease structure to finance construction and improvement to public facilities.

After 2024, road work will be funded through a separate Transportation Maintenance Fund.

In deciding which roads had the highest need for maintenance, Johnson and his team referred to what they call the “pavement condition index,” which ranks the quality of every road in the city every four years.

Each road gets an aggregate score of zero to 100 and Johnson’s team analyzed the data to determine which streets were in highest need, he said.

Zvonek, who is an avid cyclist, has seen roads that used to be in pretty rough shape finally repaired and he feels the improvements when he rides, he said.

He also hears from community members who are happy that their local government is tackling the issue, he said.

For a city with more than 4,300 lane miles of roadway — a number calculated by multiplying centerline miles by the number of lanes — having a sustainable maintenance cycle is vital to road quality, Johnson said.

“I hope it shows residents just how much of a difference this maintenance can make,” Johnson said. “We want to keep it a priority for the citizens and anyone they elect in the future … just keeping it so that we don’t get into another one of those points where we’re having deferred maintenance.”

While the finished work marks the end of the Build Up Aurora campaign as it pertains to roads, the ‘Build Up Aurora’ slogan will be used to address improvement projects in the future.