Drive or bike across the Bay Area and you’ll notice aging asphalt turning to smooth pavement and back again to cracks and potholes. Chalk up the differences in road quality to city limits.
The condition of Bay Area roads varies widely by jurisdiction, according to a recent report by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional transportation agency for the nine counties. On the whole, it’s not particularly good.
The Bay Area’s roads are graded by condition, and an index gives a quick glimpse into which are most in need of repairs. The commission’s goal is an average of 85 out of 100 over the course of three years on the pavement condition index, meaning streets are only in moderate distress and require mostly preventative maintenance. But only a handful of jurisdictions are performing close to that level — typically smaller, wealthier cities with fewer miles of road to maintain. The top-scoring cities were Palo Alto, Orinda and Larkspur, with scores of 83, and Cupertino, with a score of 82.
The cities and counties with the worst-maintained roads, all receiving “poor” ratings, were Vallejo (45), Pacifica (47), Petaluma (48) and unincorporated Napa County (48). Counties maintain roads in unincorporated areas.
On average, roads across the Bay Area continue to hover in mediocre territory. For the ninth straight year, the region’s 44,000 miles of local streets were rated as “fair,” scoring 67 — meaning that many roadways are approaching a critical point where they will require significant work to prevent more rapid deterioration. Rough streets can wear down cars and be dangerous for cyclists. According to a survey by AAA, potholes caused U.S. drivers to spend an estimated $26.5 billion in 2021, mostly due to damage on tires and vehicle alignments.
The commission’s goal of having all the region’s streets and roads “in a state of good repair is proving to be frustratingly hard to reach,” Chair Alfredo Pedroza, a Napa County supervisor, said in a news release.
The major roadblock is funding. Road maintenance has become more expensive as the cost of materials and labor continues to rise.
Local street-improvement bond measures on the ballot this week appeared to have passed in a few Bay Area jurisdictions, including a $267 million measure in Berkeley and a $390 million infrastructure bond in San Francisco, of which $63.9 million will go to streets.
“It’s hard to move the needle, because the size of the network is so big,” said John Goodwin, the transportation commission’s spokesman. “That’s why you can see these quick swings in smaller municipalities.”
The larger cities in the Bay Area, while mostly coming up in the middle of the pack, did make improvements from last year. San Jose, which has the region’s largest street network with nearly 4,500 miles, improved its rating to “good” with a score of 71, up from 69 in the previous period. Meanwhile, San Francisco maintained its above-average performance with a steady score of 74.
Despite the score, San Francisco resident Steve Thompson said he’s constantly navigating potholes and roadwork driving through the city.
Filling up his silver Subaru at a gas station along 19th Avenue, which is set for a major repaving project next summer, Thompson described how street repairs sometimes make it a pain to get across town.
“You choose your lanes because you know this one has plates on the street,” he said. “You just have to have that awareness.”
In Oakland, the score rose by three points to 57, but the city’s single-year score fell by a point to 56 from 57 in 2022. That’s even after the city led a “pothole blitz” in the spring of 2023 following winter storms’ damage to the roads.
But if it’s made any difference, East Oakland resident Shamesha Clark hasn’t noticed.
“The roads are worse than ever,” Clark said. “The city didn’t fix nothing — what did they fix? People are still getting their wheel bearings broken.”
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Larkspur, notably, boasts the highest single-year score in the Bay Area at 89, with a three-year average of 83. This turnaround from “poor” ratings as recently as 2017 follows the passage of two local sales tax measures dedicated to street rehabilitation in recent years.
Though maintaining road quality costs money, it can also save cities money long term by reducing the amount of major repairs required, which typically costs five to 10 times more than routine maintenance, according to the commission.