Marlborough District Council Roading Assets - Activity Management Plan 2015 - 2018 SECTION 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.6 ACTIVITY MANAGEMENT 1.6.1 Sealed Pavement 1.6.1.1 Physical Description The total roading network administered by the Marlborough District Council (Council) consists of 1526.6km of road, of which 886km is sealed and 640km is unsealed. This Section of the Activity Management Plan (AMP) covers the management of the 886km of sealed roads pavements. The 886km includes 16.9km of the Rainbow Rd, the road to the Rainbow Ski Field, which is a ‘special purpose road’. There are 184.0km of sealed roads classified as urban which have a speed restriction of 70 km/hr or less. Most of the urban roads are in the townships of Blenheim, Picton, Renwick, Havelock, Seddon and Ward. Currently the Marlborough Network roads are been separated into five categories / hierarchies, based on their function. The length of sealed network by category is as follows: Hierarchy Description Type* Sealed Length % of Sealed Network Primary Arterials R2 33.792 4% Secondary Arterials R3 22.193 2% Collector Rds R4 195.583 22% Local Rds R5 633.467 71% Local B Rds R6 3.635 0.004% 888.670 100% Sealed Length by Hierarchy Table 6.1.1 * R1 Roads are State Highways, ref NZTA AMP The road hierarchy is used in determining the appropriate level of service for that road and for prioritising future road improvements. A full list of roads and their classification is shown in Appendix A. At the time of preparation of this plan the new NZTA ‘One Network’ road classification system is being set up for the Marlborough Network. The One Network system will be a uniform classification system to be used across all TLA and NZTA networks (local roads and state highways). The system will set levels of service for each road classification thereby setting a common ‘standard’ for roads within each classification across the country. The effect on the Marlborough network is not known at the time of preparing this plan but it is likely that as roads are reclassified the LoS on some will go up and others may come down. All of the sealed pavements within the Marlborough region are thin surfaced flexible pavements. Thin surfaced flexible pavements can be divided into two elemental components, pavements and surfacings. Pavements are the structural element of the road and are generally the granular layers between the subgrade or formation and the surfacing. Surfacings are chip seal or asphalt which keep the pavement waterproof and provides a dust free safe surface to drive on. As these components have different life cycles some aspects of their management needs to be considered separately. 1.6.1.2 Current Age 1.6.1.2.1 Pavement Age Road pavements are designed in accordance with the AUSTROADS ‘Guide to the Structural Design of Road Pavements’. The design method used is a mechanistic design approach based on the maximum tolerable tensile strain between the various pavement layers and the maximum tolerable compressive strain at the top of the subgrade. The pavement design calculates the depth of granular pavement over the subgrade or formation required to carry the specified traffic loading. The key elements of the process are the traffic loading, in particular the percentage of heavy vehicles, and the strength of the underlying subgrade. The design process permits the use of a wide variety of locally available pavement materials particularly in the lower pavement layers. 30 September 2014 Page 29 of Section 1