Kingsport residents can soon expect to see a peculiar vehicle roving their neighborhood roads, as the city embarks on a detailed street condition survey that could decide the paving fortune of their daily commutes. According to a recent city announcement, throughout the next month, a specialized vehicle equipped with lidar technology will be rolling across Kingsport’s streets. It's designed to shoot 3-D laser scanning down onto the roadways to assess any surface imperfections, from tiny cracks to more significant wear and tear.
The city's approach, described on its official website, doesn't only aim to just collect a swath of data but to finely tune their paving projects. Deputy City Manager Ryan McReynolds delineated the goal, stating, "It’s a process that ranks the roughly 400 miles of city roads from best to worst, which will then allow us to know which ones need a new coat of asphalt." These surveys are not newcomers to Kingsport's maintenance strategy. They follow in the tracks of similar studies conducted back in 2016 and again in 2021, each seeking to create a comprehensive digital image inventory for the city's roads.
Roadway Asset Services, the firm behind the specialized vehicle, has been tasked with the city-wide undertaking. They ensure the highest data quality by running their surveys exclusively during daylight hours. This street-scanning venture plays into Kingsport's larger strategic blueprint for infrastructure, a data-driven, annually revised paving plan informed by a robust, condition-based ranking system of the city's streets.
Kingsport has stood steadfast in its commitment to sustainability and resource allocation when it comes to road resurfacing. Their website pavekingsport.com showcases an average of 17 miles of freshly laid asphalt each year since 2017. "This survey will give us the latest information on the condition of our roadways and enable us to better plan our future paving projects," McReynolds noted.
The latest updates on the street conditions, upcoming paving schedules, and a record of past presentations will be made accessible to the public. For residents eager to track the progress of their streets or to map the condition of their daily routes, the results of the survey will be updated on the Kingsport website soon after the data collection phase concludes.
