Caltrans is responsible for maintaining and operating approximately 50,000 lane-miles of the state highway system, the backbone of California’s transportation infrastructure. This includes monitoring the condition and operational performance of the highways through periodic inspections, traffic studies, and system analysis.

State law requires the development of a state highway system needs assessment that uses performance targets to estimate current needs.  Performance measures and targets are used to track progress and guide state and local agencies towards short, medium, and long-term objectives. The Ten-Year Project Book shows how Caltrans will utilize strong asset management practices to help ensure Caltrans and its partners continue to make the best use of resources by carefully balancing multiple competing needs for infrastructure preservation and improvement.

The Ten-Year Project Book provides a list of the individual projects needed to restore the State Highway System to a condition that meets the performance targets enshrined into law through the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 (Senate Bill 1).  The Project Book is a natural extension of the recently adopted California Transportation Asset Management Plan, which prioritizes projects based on their contribution to the overall health of the State Highway System and its many component parts.

The Transportation Asset Management Plan articulates performance targets established by legislation and action by the California Transportation Commission for the four primary Transportation Asset Management Program asset classes: pavement, bridges, culverts, and transportation management systems elements. The performance targets included in Senate Bill 1 direct that over the next ten years, not less than:

• 98% of pavement on the state highway system must be in good or fair condition;
• 90% of culverts must be in good or fair condition;
• 90% of transportation management systems units must be in good condition; and
• An additional 500 bridges must be repaired.

Caltrans is requesting that local and regional partners identify any regionally or locally funded projects that Caltrans should be aware of to discuss proposed scope, funding scenarios, delivery timeframes, potential impacts to the State Highway System, and coordination responsibilities. For Caltrans to add a highway project into the State Highway Operations Protection Program workplan it needs to be in the Transportation Agency's Regional Transportation Plan, be in Caltrans Three-Year Workplan, and have an executed cooperative agreement. 

Caltrans District 5 staff will provide an update on the Ten-Year Project Book and the 2020 State Highway Operation and Protection Program (attachment 1), and will seek input from the Technical Advisory Committee at the March meeting.