Pavement Management Technical Assistance (P-TAP) Program Overview

car tire on potholes

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)'s Pavement Management Technical Assistance Program (P-TAP) helps Bay Area cities and counties make cost-effective improvements to streets and roads.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, especially when it comes to funding local streets and roads.

P-TAP uses federal dollars to help Bay Area cities and counties stretch their road budgets by:

  • Implementing, updating and maintaining pavement management databases
  • Providing accurate pavement condition data to city councils, county supervisors or other local decision makers
  • Supporting the region’s management of non-pavement street and road assets, such as signs, storm drains, curbs and gutters, traffic signals and street lights as pilot projects

MTC has dedicated about $1.5 million of federal money annually for P-TAP grants through the 2022-2023 fiscal year.

We issue a call for projects every fall. All Bay Area cities and counties within the region in charge of maintaining streets and roads are eligible to apply for P-TAP funds.

Pavement Management Program (PMP) Certification

MTC provides both technical and financial assistance to cities and counties seeking to improve and maintain their local street or road networks. Their pavement management programs (PMPs) must be certified to qualify for regional discretionary funds.

Learn about PMP certification.

What is a Heavy Load

Heavy vehicles such as trucks and buses put far more stress on pavement than a passenger car does.

A bus exerts more than 7,000 times the stress of a typical sports utility vehicle, while garbage trucks exerts more than 9,000 times as much stress.

Not surprisingly, cracks appear more quickly on streets with large traffic volumes and/or heavy use by trucks and buses.

43,000 Miles of Pavement

The local streets and roads owned and maintained by the Bay Area’s nine counties and 101 cities include nearly 43,000 lane-miles of pavement.

Add curbs and gutters, sidewalks, storm drains, traffic signs, signals and lights—which are all needed to keep our roadways functioning.

To replace this network would cost something on the order of $40 billion or more.

StreetSaver®

StreetSaver is MTC’s award-winning software that helps our cities and counties make maintenance decisions to prevent pavement problems.