Bay Area pavement report card finds few changes, Larkspur tops list

An annual report card on the Bay Area’s local roads and streets released Thursday found no change overall in regional pavement conditions across the past several years, though some cities saw marked improvements.
The report from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission—the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county Bay Area—rated the region’s pavement condition index score in 2023 as 67 out of 100 points, calculated as a three-year moving average. It’s the ninth straight year the region’s roads have registered an average score of 67.
The highest one-year score in the report was Larkspur in Marin County at 89, and its three-year average score of 83 was tied with Orinda and Palo Alto for the highest in the region. The MTC noted that Larkspur’s rating as recently as 2017 was below 50, but its voters approved sales tax measures to rehabilitate the city’s 65 miles of streets.
Vallejo had the lowest three-year average score in the Bay Area at 45, while Pacifica, Petaluma and unincorporated Napa County also scored below 50, rating as “poor” in the report.
Among larger cities in the region, San Jose’s three-year average score improved slightly to 71, while San Francisco’s stayed the same at 74 and Oakland’s rose slightly to 57, though Oakland’s single-year score fell one point from the prior year.
“MTC’s goal of having all the region’s streets and roads in a state of good repair is proving to be frustratingly hard to reach,” MTC chair and Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza said in a statement. “The good news is that city and county public works teams have been able to prevent large-scale deterioration. We’re even seeing big improvements in some places. The bad news is there’s still so far to go.”
The report can be found at https://mtc.ca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024-10/PCI_table_2023_data_10-30-2024.pdf.