Does the city have a valid argument or are they just trying to baffle the citizens with BS to justify dictating a single vendor for garbage collection in Peachtree City?
The city gave a presentation about the impact waste haulers have on asphalt pavement. It was an academic exercise summarized by a graph depicting pavement condition over years of use integrated with maintenance options. The four lines on the graph were the 40 year Designed Life, 1 Waste Hauler, 2 Waste Haulers and 3 Waste Haulers.
An interesting thing about the graph that should have raised a red flag, which council ignored, didn’t notice or didn’t understand, was the 1 Waste Hauler line showed better pavement conditions than the 40 year Designed Life projection.
Common sense says that can’t be correct, and therefore, should cast suspicion on the validity of the data and the presentation’s conclusion.
The graph also showed that Full Depth Reclamation (FDR) maintenance should be done at 24 years for the 40-year Designed Life, 27 years with 1 Waste Hauler use and 14 years with 3 Waste Haulers use.
No real world example was offered to validate the data. Why was that? The city has detailed Pavement Condition Index data for all city streets from both the PACES and IMS evaluations. They also should have street maintenance records. Maybe they couldn’t find an example to support their data?
Preston Chase subdivision does offer an example to invalidate the data. The subdivision and streets are over 24 years old. Preston Chase Drive is the main street into the subdivision. Chase Court is the first side street and Preston Circle is the second side street.
Three waste haulers have serviced the subdivision, and despite that, no street specific maintenance has been done to the streets until this year.
The subdivision streets were repaved recently. By the city’s data, the 24-year-old streets should have had an FDR done 10 years ago, or at least this year, but didn’t. Preston Chase Drive and Chase Court received only a 2-inch mill and pave. Preston Circle did receive an FDR.
Why did only Preston Circle get the FDR? Most likely it’s because over the years it’s received significant stormwater run off from the adjacent property; not from wear and tear by three waste haulers.
John Dufresne
Peachtree City, Ga.
