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Pavement

• WSDOT pavement lane miles in fair or better condition held steady from 93.3% in 2013 to 93.4% in 2014
• WSDOT will continue to use strategic preservation methods to extend pavement life in the 2015-2017 biennium and plans to double the lane miles receiving cost-effective maintenance treatments over the amount from the 2013-2015 biennium

WSDOT saw a 10% decrease in its preservation backlog from $391 million in 2013 to $351 million in 2014, which was due to better-than-expected performance from strategic pavement preservation activities. The 2015 Connecting Washington funding package helps further reduce the preservation liability through 2020. This funding will provide additional resources to apply pavement preservation the majority of sections that otherwise would become past due.

Tolling

Tolling transactions increased 4% in fiscal year 2015 (July 2014 through June 2015) compared to FY2014 from 36.1 million transactions to 37.6 million on the state's three toll facilities in operation during this period: the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the State Route 520 Bridge and SR 167.

Trip Reduction

• Employees at worksites with Commute Trip Reduction programs are leaving approximately 14,500 cars at home every day
• Employees in CTR programs have decreased Vehicle Miles Traveled by an annual average of about 33 million miles as compared to 2007

Freight Rail

• Washington Grain Train shipments decreased 8.1% from 1,974 carloads in the 2014 crop year (October 2013 through September 2014) to 1,815 carloads in the 2015 crop year (October 2014 through September 2015)
• WSDOT awarded $9.35 million in state grants and loans to support 19 freight rail projects in the 2015-2017 biennium

Environmental Compliance

• WSDOT performed 2.6 million hours of maintenance in 2015 without receiving a single violation notice
• Of 663 active construction projects in 2015, 98% of them did not receive violation notices

Twenty-five environmental violation notices were issued to WSDOT and its contractors for all ferry sailings, active construction projects and maintenance in 2015. Of these, contractors received 12 because regulatory agencies determined they were solely responsible for the violation or were the permit-holder.

Worker Safety and Health

WSDOT's measures of worker safety (the recordable incident rate and "days away restricted or transferred" rate) improved significantly from 2011 through 2015. The RIR dropped from 5.4 in 2014 to 4.3 in 2015, indicating a decrease in the number of OSHA recordable injuries per 100 workers at agency worksites. The DART rate also decreased from 2.7 in 2014 to 1.8 in 2015.

Construction Cost Trends

WSDOT's Construction Cost Index decreased by 14.9% in 2015, from 328 in 2014 to 279, largely due to smaller construction awards with reduced materials needs. Also, the price of roadway excavation decreased by 43.6% strongly influencing the CCI. Roadway excavation spiked by 235% in 2014 due to the complexity of several of WSDOT's larger digs, and declined in 2015 due to smaller, more typical excavation work. WSDOT uses the CCI to track price changes in some of its common construction activities.