System Preservation Guide: A Planning Process for Local Government Management of Transportation Networks

The purpose of the System Preservation Guide is to demonstrate useful methods to address preservation needs at the local level. Assisted by MnDOT staff, engineers and commissioners from five pilot counties (Anoka, Dakota, Stearns, Freeborn, and Otter Tail) served as working laboratories to test various preservation tools, methods, strategies, and communication techniques. The county engineers, by serving on the study's Advisory Committee, also shared their experiences and guided additional applied research activities on methods they found most useful. A number of analysis tools, available technical resources/data, effective communication techniques, and eight specific preservation initiatives were explored during the study process. The results of these initiatives were documented by case studies and well received by county engineers and their commissioners. In some cases significant positive impacts on preservation needs have already been realized. For example, as a direct outcome of this work, four of the five counties substantially increased local revenue dedicated to system preservation. Other non-revenue raising preservation strategies, will take longer to realize results and may be harder to quantify, but county engineers feel all will beneficially contribute to addressing their needs. From their involvement in the system preservation study process, pilot county engineers believe important best practices, and lessons learned were realized that are of value to other practitioners; these are enumerated in the study. The accomplishments achieved by the pilot counties are noteworthy, and their experiences and lessons learned using the Preservation Guide merit sharing among peer practitioners.