STUDY OF BRENHAM STREETS SHOWS RISING BACKLOG OF ROADS NEEDING MAJOR WORK
a street study with the Brenham City Council on
Thursday.
Results from a street study shared with the Brenham City Council on Thursday show a dip in road conditions from the last study performed in 2020.
Public Works Director Dane Rau said the street inventory conducted by Infrastructure Management Services indicated a slight decline in the city’s overall Pavement Condition Index (PCI), from 59 percent in 2020 to 57 percent this year. The target threshold is 70 percent. Meanwhile, the backlog of streets categorized as poor or very poor has grown in that time from 14 percent to 25 percent.
Rau said the city spends an average of $1.2 million annually on street maintenance and reconstruction, which covers roughly 2.5 miles of roadway per year, but more funding will be needed to reverse this trend.
According to the report presented by Rau, 89 miles of city streets were studied, not including recently constructed concrete sections of roadway. Per the study, 50 percent of streets are classified as excellent, very good or good; 11 percent of streets are listed as fair; and 39 percent of streets are considered marginal, poor or very poor.
Rau also listed out several streets that are planned for widening projects within the next three to ten years: Stone Street, Old Mill Creek Road, Burleson Street, North Dixie Street, Old Chappell Hill Road, Gun and Rod Road, Westwood Lane and South Chappell Hill Street. A workshop is planned in November to further discuss which projects to target.
In November 2025, the city council approved a professional services agreement with IMS to perform pavement data collection and analysis. The agreement was for $49,980.
While not part of the discussion on the study, the council brought up TxDOT’s work on sidewalks around the city, and Rau mentioned some contractor errors have led to concrete getting “ripped up”. He said it is not the city’s project and expects that the contractor, not TxDOT, is “eating” that cost. He thanked citizens for their patience as the sidewalk work continues.
