AI street scan to assist Elyria in street resurfacing choices

ELYRIA — City officials hope that Elyria's 2026 street resurfacing program will be its most effective ever, with the help of a report that used artificial intelligence to scan and grade all 222.5 miles of road in the city. Although it may come as a surprise to many Elyria drivers, the report from Pavement Management Group found that only 24 percent of the city's roadways were in either "poor" or "failed" condition. PMG, which is based in Heath, traversed the entire city in late September and early October with specialized cars, recording high definition video of every street in the city. These videos are then fed into the company's artificial intelligence program, which identifies types, number and intensity of pavement distress. PMG uses this information to calculate a final pavement condition index, or PCI, on a scale from 0 to 100. The company's PCI classifications are as follows: 100-90 is excellent, 89-70 is good, 69-50 is fair, 49-30 is poor and 29 or lower is failed. The average score for all 2,087 road sections analyzed was 68, meaning that on average Elyria's streets are on the high end of the fair condition category. PMG also provided a breakdown of how many miles of street in the city fall under each category. The total of 222.5 centerline miles (miles only in length, not area) was rounded up to 223 for the general breakdown. Of those miles, 45 miles (20 percent) were classified as excellent, 64 miles (29 percent) were in good condition, 61 miles (27 percent) were in fair condition, 41 miles (19 percent) were in poor condition and 12 miles (5 percent) were failed. When counting both lanes of travel, Elyria has 482 total miles of road. Every year, Elyria budgets equal amounts of money to each City Council ward, and ward representatives decide which of their streets should be included. This money comes from the city's 2016 half-percent income tax, which was renewed by voters in 2025. Traditionally, grading the streets has fallen to the Engineering and Street departments, but Safety Service Director Chris Pyanowski said the report would provide a simpler, third-party overview of which streets most need repair. "The reception from the Council people, I think they were a little reluctant at first, but now that they have seen the product they are like, 'Wait, this is great,'" Pyanowski said. Council members still have the final say on which of the streets in their ward are resurfaced. Council President Donna Mitchell, D-6th Ward, is also the chair of the Utilities Safety and Environment Committee and thus has overseen the street resurfacing selections for a number of years. Mitchell said that she believed the AI tool would help Council members with planning and selections, but she felt it was still crucial for them to get out in their wards and review streets in person. "I look at this as another tool that Council can use," she said. "Of course, I would like them to continue going out, putting their own eyes on their streets and making their own decisions, but the street scan gives us a place to start." Every year, Mitchell does one review of all the streets in her ward herself, then she does a ride-along with Engineering Department Program Manager Bill Forthofer to check the streets again. Mitchell said she believes that Council members have done a good job of determining which roads in their ward need the most help. "I think we have been good stewards of that money, doing what we said we would do (with it) and I think people recognize that," Mitchell said. "Every year I wish that we had more money to do more, but I think we do a good job with what we have." Mitchell acknowledged that despite the general support, every year, some residents feel their street has been skipped over in the process. Pyanowski said that he hoped the new trove of impartial, third-party data would make Council's decisions on street resurfacing more understandable to residents. "It gives (Council) another piece of information to consider," Pyanowski said. "And as a third party, it is not a resident complaining about a road which may, in their opinion, be bad, but it might not meet the criteria. This is independent, and it helps us measure where we are at." Although Utilities began discussion on the 2026 street resurfacing program on Wednesday — Mitchell said she wanted to get an earlier start than last year — the committee does not know yet how much money it will have to work with. Finance Director Ted Pileski is working on that budgeting now, Pyanowski said. However much money the program receives this year, Pyanowski said that he felt the data and the interactive maps provided by PMG would help to stretch it further by making planning easier. "Every one of these paving projects has some additional costs, including simply loading up all your equipment and getting it there, right?" he said. "So if I am a councilman, I say to myself 'This road really needs to be done, it is failed, and this one right here as well.' So maybe I say let's do them both this year to minimize those moving costs. That might help them stretch their money a little further." Pyanowski said that the data would also help beyond the street resurfacing program itself by highlighting problematic sections that can be addressed with crack sealing — the city purchased a crack sealer machine in 2025 — throughout the year. In addition to providing overviews of every road section in the city, PMG also provided breakdowns by ward. Ward 4 had the worst average PCI score with a grade of 63, while Ward 1 was scored just slightly better at a 64. Elyria's 2nd Ward has the most centerline mileage in the city with 44.1 miles, and it received the third-worst PCI score of 66. Ward 4 and Ward 1 are the second- and third-largest wards by center mileage with 35.6 and 34.1 miles respectively. In contrast, the wards with the fewest centerline miles had the best average PCI scores by a significant margin. Ward 5's 24.7 miles of road had a "good" average PCI score of 70. Ward 3 has the fewest miles of road with just 22 miles, and had the best average PCI score by far with an average of 77. The situation with Ward 5 is more complicated though, as the ward is dominated by the "good" graded Middle Avenue which runs its length, but has many much shorter side streets that are graded as poor or failed. The worst graded road in the entire city is a 692-foot section of Sycamore Road east of Roosevelt Avenue. The entire section was graded at a PCI of 6 out of 100. On the other end of the spectrum, 6.4 total centerline miles in the city were given a perfect, excellent condition grade of 100. This grade was spread across portions of road across the city, with every ward having at least one instance of a perfect road grade. Pyanowski said that under the contract with PMG, only the first round of AI scans would be done, but the company would continue to update and maintain the online dashboard through 2028 using data provided by the city. "It is going to take us some time to make the improvements to the roads that are in the worst shape," he said. "So by the time we have made those improvements, it will be time to scan again anyways. We shouldn't have any drastic changes between now and then." Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.