Item C: Review of Implementation of Street Bond Measure

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SUSTAINABILITY The City of Eugene continually strives to improve the quality, environmental footprint, and cost efficiency of its projects. In 2012, Eugene continued to use warm mix asphalt pavement and in place recycling to meet these sustainability criteria. Warm mix asphalt continued to be specified for all the paving projects in 2011 in place of conventional hot mix asphalt. As explained in the Key Terms section of this report warm mix asphalt provides environmental and human health benefits as well as a potentially longer lasting product. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program ( NCHRP) estimates that there is a CO savings of 12 pounds per ton of pavement using warm mix as compared to hot mix asphalt. The NCHRP also estimates that the use of warm mix asphalt reduces the energy used in the asphalt batch plant by about 30% compared to hot mix asphalt. In -place recycling (see Key Terms) was used on the street bond projects on 24th Avenue, Augusta Street, Riverview Street, and Royal Avenue. It is estimated that using the in -place recycling process for these streets eliminated the need to excavate and haul away 22,000 cubic yards of material and eliminated hauling 39,000 tons of new base rock to the site, saving over 3,500 truck trips for the four streets. The City of Eugene started using the in -place recycling process to realize the environmental, economic and social benefits to the community that can come from this type of process. The reduction in land filling, material mining, and truck hauling all have direct environmental benefits; the reduction in excavating existing roadway materials and importing virgin construction materials have direct economic benefits; and the reduction in construction time has a direct social benefit. Funding Status and Forecast In 2012, construction costs increased significantly over early bond years. For example, according to global energy advisor Poten & Partners, Inc., the average price for asphalt cement in the Portland area in June 2011 was $541 per ton and in June 2012 was $639 per ton, an increase of about 18% (published on the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) website and used to calculate asphalt escalation factors). According to the Construction Costs Forecast by ODOT (published October 2012) ODOT projects that construction costs will continue to increase at a more steady rate rather than with the volatility of recent years, for a variety of reasons: • Extreme volatility in fossil fuel market is not expected, with prices remaining steady over the next few years (with seasonal fluctuations). • Construction materials cost forecasts a "bump up" for the remainder of 2013 with steady increases through 2016 with producer prices overall steady (forecast average change per FY 3.1 % through FY2020). • Machinery /equipment cost forecasts a bump up for the remainder of 2013 and then normal or average prices overall (forecast average change per FY 2.3% through FY 2020). 2012 SRRP REPORT