102 out of 166 road segments rated ‘poor’

By Megan Kelley
Review Writer
LAKE ORION — After years of residents’ complaints about the poor road conditions in the village, the Lake Orion Village Council has finally received the new results of their 2022 PASER evaluation (Pavement Surface Evaluation Rating).
Essentially, the evaluation, which was done by Nowak & Fraus (NFE) Engineers, is an evaluation of all the roads in the village. The evaluation was done in May 2022. Prior to that, the last street evaluation was done in 2019.
The village council received the PASER report during its meeting on Monday but took no action.
The evaluation ranks road segments on a scale of one to 10, with one being the worst, or “failing condition” and 10 being the best, or “excellent condition.”
There are 11.6 miles of village-owned roads in Lake Orion.
According to the report, two roads have the lowest rating of one, 33 roads have a rating of two, 67 roads have a rating of three, 33 roads have a rating of four, nine roads have a rating of five, 11 roads have a rating of six, eight roads have a rating of seven, one road has a rating of eight, one road has a rating of nine and one road has a rating of 10.
The evaluation was completed for 157 road segments and for nine segments of Flint Street, according to the report to the village council.
Bridge Street from Central Drive to the dead end and Clare Street from Grove Street to the dead end received the worst ratings.
In the report, NFE recommends the village repairs roads that have a rating of five or less within the next five years. This means, to follow the recommendation, the village would have 144 out of their 166 road segments in need of repair.
“It (the PASER study) pretty much says that the streets in the village are in horrible condition and I believe we don’t have any money whatsoever to repair the streets,” said Councilmember Michel Lamb. “The village manager did mention that he thought a special assessment to all the residents would be an appropriate way to fix them.”
“The information collected through the PASER process is used to identify street repair and replacement needs and priority of needed improvements in order to prepare a comprehensive multi-year capital improvement plan for the village’s streets,” village Manager Darwin McClary wrote in a memo to the council.
Several council members expressed that they would like to postpone the discussion until the village’s consulting engineer, Carol Thurber, could be present to answer questions and give additional information about the PASER report.
The council voted unanimously to postpone the presentation until its March 27 meeting.