Roadway systems in the United States have consistently been evaluated to have poor condition grades in the last two decades. According to American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Infrastructure Report Cards, the overall condition scores of the roads in the United States have been fluctuating between a grade of "D -" and a "D+" since 1998 (ASCE 1998, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013). The latest report card states that approximately one-third (32%) of the major roads in the U.S. are in poor or mediocre conditions (ASCE 2013). It is further added that 42% of the major urban highways in the U.S. are congested, resulting in large amounts of wasted fuel, emissions, delays, and lost time. When it comes to the State of New York, the condition of roadways is reported to be worse than the national average, as 60% of the roads are in poor or mediocre condition. The City of Syracuse, located in Central New York, also suffers from a large number of deteriorated roadway sections. Some of the factors that contribute to the deterioration of these roadways include aging, wear and tear, harsh weather conditions in winter (freeze-thaw cycles, heavy snowfall), and use of de-icing agents. Absence of a formal infrastructure asset management system for roadways further obscures the efficient use of limited resources.

In order to address problems associated with its aging infrastructure, the City of Syracuse, with support of a grant from “Bloomberg Philanthropies”, formed the “Office of Innovation” in 2015. The Office of Innovation investigated the infrastructure related problems in the City of Syracuse and issued a list of recommendations to address various problems with water, wastewater, and roadway systems (Innovate Syracuse 2016). In a recent meeting with Office of Innovation members, it was indicated that an outreach activity would be highly beneficial in raising city officials’ awareness with respect to the importance and necessity of procedures involved in developing a holistic infrastructure asset management approach for civil infrastructure systems (Finch and Robinson, personal communication, 2016).

This proposal aims to undertake outreach activities to advance the awareness of City of Syracuse Officials on Implementation of Asset Management Principles for Local Street Networks. The workshop will be designed to provide a comprehensive set of guidelines on the initiation and continuation of the tasks involved with management of local street networks. As such, some of the important components of the workshop will include: generating an inventory for roadway networks, condition assessment and evaluation, deterioration models, risk assessment, risk mitigation, and decision models.