Road Conditions in South Jordan: what the record shows

Ask South Jordan's public works staff about the streets and the answer is confident. Assistant City Manager Jason Rasmussen told the City Council in March that the city's most recent pavement assessment put the network's average condition rating at 84.6, on a scale where zero is failed pavement and 100 is a new road, and that South Jordan's roads are "likely among the highest rated in Salt Lake County" 2. The adopted fiscal year 2026-27 budget backs the claim with money: $4,700,000 in Class C Road Fund revenue, $6,361,000 committed to transportation projects in the capital plan, and 887.57 lane miles of pavement maintained out of a Streets division operating budget of $2,777,478 1. Rasmussen told the council that Class C Road Fund revenues "are directly reinvested into roadway maintenance" 2. "Pay as you go" is the city's stated policy, and in an era when cities routinely defer maintenance and then borrow to catch up, that is not a weak position.

The complication is that the city's own record is less steady than the headline number. When the pavement preservation team presented to the council in October 2024, its slide put the network's pavement condition index at 83 percent and said plainly that the index had "declined by 10% since 2021," with the overall road network "beginning to age" 4. That is the city's own chart, drawn from its own inspections — and it describes a network moving the wrong way three years after the same department told a previous council that a well-maintained neighborhood street can last 50 years while a main arterial needs new asphalt in 20 5.

The measurement that produces the 84.6 is also taken rarely. Public Works Director Raymond Garrison told the council in March that pavement condition assessments are updated roughly every two to three years, and that staff are only now exploring software that would allow annual evaluations and generate pothole repair plans 2. A governing number refreshed every third year can fall for two years before anyone in City Hall has a reading — and the 2024 presentation shows what that accumulation looks like: potholes repaired rose from 134 in 2021 to 147 in 2022, 250 in 2023 and 455 in 2024 4.

The budget's own performance table is more candid than the briefings. It sets the standard for the pavement condition index at "greater than 85," then reports 82.54 for 2025, a 2026 target of 84.01 and a 2027 target of 85 1. The document does not show the standard being met. It shows the city still climbing toward it, three years after telling the council that it had to hold above 80 to avoid the spiral other cities fell into.

That is the engineering half. The resident half is in the same document, and it is worse. The Streets division publishes the results of the city's Annual Community Survey beside its targets. The city's performance measure targets an 80% or higher rating for surface maintenance services. The 2025 actual was 68%. The 2026 target is 68%. The 2027 target is 80% 1. Sidewalk maintenance services came in at 68% against the same 80% standard, with a 2027 target of 70%, and snow removal at 73%, with a 2027 target of 80% 1. Across the whole Public Works department, the measure asking for an 80% or higher rating on developing and maintaining reliable utility systems, transportation needs and facilities came in at 71% for 2025, against a 2026 target of 72% 1.

Those are the city's own numbers, asked of the city's own residents, printed by the city's own budget office. Nothing in them is a complaint from this paper. But a resident rating street surface maintenance last year sat twelve points below the standard her city set for itself, and the budget that followed says next year's goal is to still be twelve points below. That is not a forecast of improvement; it is a decision to hold. The measures the city grades itself on look far better: potholes repaired within two days of a request and street signs repaired within one day are both reported at 100% 1.

There is a second reason for unease, and the city named it first. In the March 17 budget session, City Manager Dustin Lewis described Class C Road funds as revenue "generated from gas taxes" that may become "less reliable over time due to legislative changes and the increasing use of electric and hybrid vehicles" 3. The replacement staff put before the council was a transportation utility fee — a recurring charge tied to roadway use, of the kind South Salt Lake levies on commercial property and Pleasant Grove has charged residents 3. Implementing one would require a formal study, public hearings and an ordinance, City Attorney Ryan Loose told the council, with the fee re-studied every ten years and schools and churches exempt under current law 3. Mayor Dawn R. Ramsey stressed that any such program needed public transparency and periodic review 3.

The budget the council adopted in May 2026 contains no transportation utility fee 1. What it does contain is a different dedicated utility fee. The new Parks Fee — $5.28 a month for a single-family home and $3.38 for a multi-family unit — is dedicated exclusively to parks, trails, open space and the cemetery, cannot be spent on wages or other city services, and is booked at $1,600,000 of new revenue in the general fund 61. It is a genuine, well-argued answer to a real problem, and the city made the case for it openly.

The question this page has to ask is why the same tool was not reached for on the other side of the ledger, in the same budget, three weeks after the council was told the road fund is structurally weakening. Nothing in the record says the transportation fee was rejected. The record says it was described, defended, costed against other cities and left as a study 3.

The operating side does not suggest a build-out behind it either. Streets has been held at 22 full-time positions since fiscal 2025, and the new budget trades one post for another — the Blue Stake Technician role goes to zero while maintenance workers rise from 15 to 16 1. General fund street spending rises to $2,777,478 from $2,431,539 actual in fiscal 2025, a real increase, against a network that keeps growing and aging: Rasmussen told the council that Daybreak's infrastructure is now over twenty years old and that "more intensive treatments such as overlays" will be needed over the next decade, requiring additional investment to sustain current road quality 2. The city already knows one of its overlay funding streams is ending. Water-line replacement work, the 2024 presentation notes, repaired older roads and raised the index, but with the last transit water lines replaced, "this will be a large decline in project funding for overlays" 4. The unit prices it buys at move the other way: asphalt at $63.50 a ton in 2024 against $43.25 in 2020, cold mix at $150 against $100 4.

What the city does choose to borrow for is instructive. At tonight's meeting the Municipal Building Authority holds a public hearing on up to $27,000,000 of lease revenue bonds to finance a new fire station and related improvements, including part of the fire training facilities 7, noticed in two separate hearings on the council's combined agenda 8. Roads are not in it. Pay-as-you-go for pavement and debt for buildings is a defensible posture, and it is the one the city has chosen — but it means the streets rise or fall on a distribution the city itself has told the council may shrink.

One entry in the paperwork deserves recording, because this page is about whether the city spends what it says it spends. The same budget states its five-year capital improvement plan as $40,305,075 in the budget-in-brief summary and as $40,130,075 in the capital improvement section 1. It is a $175,000 gap in a $40 million figure, not a scandal. It is also exactly the kind of line a reader is entitled to have reconciled.

Our judgement is narrower than a complaint. South Jordan is not misleading anyone about how much it puts into its streets: the revenue is published, the fund is named, the projects are listed, and the engineering measure of the asset is genuinely high. The gap is in which measurement the city publicises and which it targets. The 84.6 is staff's answer to whether the pavement is sound, and the answer is yes. The 68% is residents' answer to whether the service is good, and the council's own response is to ask for 68% again next year. Both figures are the city's. Both sit in one document. Only one of them made it into the case for the status quo.

The state's road program is not standing still around the city, either — this paper reported in September that a new section of U-111 opened between South Jordan Parkway and 11800 South as UDOT's project advanced, a lane shift the city of Herriman announced 9. South Jordan's streets are regional streets now, carrying regional traffic, and they will be asked to hold up under it.

Four things would change our mind, and none of them requires an argument. Adopt the transportation utility fee, or some equivalent dedicated road revenue, and publish the study's cost and allocation figures so a resident can see what they are being asked to buy. Move the survey measure off 68% within one year instead of setting 80% as a horizon. Assess the pavement annually, as staff have said they want to, and publish the index every year rather than every third year. Reconcile the two capital totals. Do those, and the engineer's number and the resident's number can start describing the same street.

Sources:

1 City of South Jordan, "Annual Budget, Fiscal Year 2026-2027" — the adopted FY 2027 budget, budget-in-brief, department performance measures, fund summaries and capital improvement program, including the Class C Road Fund, the Parks Fee revenue line and the CIP totals on pages 18 and 28. https://www.sjc.utah.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/723

2 South Jordan City, "City Council Budget Meeting, March 4, 2026 — Minutes" — pavement condition rating of 84.6, Class C Road Fund reinvestment, assessment frequency, Daybreak aging and overlay needs. https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/1433665.pdf

3 South Jordan City, "City Council Budget Meeting, March 17, 2026 — Minutes" — approved May 19, 2026; transportation utility fees, Class C Road funds and gas-tax reliability, legal requirements and exemptions. https://sjc.utah.gov/DocumentCenter/View/11952/03-17-2026-South-Jordan-City-Council-Budget-Meeting-Minutes

4 South Jordan City, "City Council Study Meeting, October 15, 2024 — Minutes and Pavement Preservation presentation" — network OCI of 83, the 10% decline since 2021, annual pothole counts, material costs, water-line replacement and overlay funding, and the conclusion on sustaining investment. https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/1198771.pdf

5 South Jordan City, "City Council Study Meeting, September 21, 2021 — Minutes" — approved October 5, 2021; City Pavement Preservation update, including pavement life for neighborhood streets and arterials. https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/766713.pdf

6 South Jordan City, "Investing in South Jordan Parks" — the Parks Fee approved as part of the Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget, its monthly amounts and the restriction of the revenue to parks, trails, open space and the cemetery. https://sjc.utah.gov/1722/Investing-in-South-Jordan-Parks

7 Municipal Building Authority of the City of South Jordan, "Notice of Public Hearing and Bonds to be Issued," October 6, 2026 — up to $27,000,000 of Lease Revenue Bonds, Series 2026, for a fire station and related improvements. https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/1489563.pdf

8 City of South Jordan, "Combined City Council & Municipal Building Authority Board Meeting Agenda," October 6, 2026 — the two bond public hearings. https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/1496263.pdf

9 South Valley Ledger, "New Section of U-111 Opens Between South Jordan Parkway and 11800 South," Sept. 28, 2026 — this paper's September report of a Herriman City announcement about the UDOT corridor. https://southvalleyledger.com/articles/new-section-of-u-111-opens-between-south-jordan-parkway-and-11800-sout-d34eb8/