1 in 3 San Diego roads are now in poor condition or worse, new report shows

San Diego’s roads have officially gotten worse.

A new report released this week shows more than one-third — 34% — of streets in the city of San Diego are in poor condition or worse.

City officials blame a “lack of consistent funding” that has forced the transportation department to defer much-needed maintenance for the more than 6,600 miles of streets and alleys under their care: They estimated that an average of $188 million a year is needed over the next decade to achieve and maintain an average street network that’s in satisfactory condition or better.

But since 2013, the city on average has spent about $46 million annually on maintenance and rehabilitation. Next year, more is allocated in the budget but funding still falls short — nearly $140 million total.

How San Diego rates roads

The city uses a Pavement Condition Index, or PCI, to assign a score to its roads. It ranges from 0 (worst) to 100 (best), putting each road in one of seven categories.

• Good, 100-85: Street displays minimal to low distress and only requires preventative maintenance.
• Satisfactory, 84-70: Street displays scattered cracking and only requires routine maintenance.
• Fair, 69-55: Street displays signs of low to medium distress and requires minor maintenance up to major rehabilitation.
• Poor, 54-40: Street displays medium distress. Near-term maintenance and rehabilitation or reconstruction may be required. Costs to maintain these streets are higher.
• Very poor, 39-25: Street displays high distress and requires considerable levels of maintenance and major rehabilitation and reconstruction.
• Serious, 24-10: Street is very highly distressed, contains various potholes, and requires considerable levels of maintenance and/or major rehabilitation and reconstruction.
• Failed, <10: Street is extremely distressed and requires full reconstruction, which requires the highest investment.

The city uses what’s known as a Pavement Condition Index to assign a score that lands in one of seven categories: good, satisfactory, fair, poor, very poor, serious and failed.

The new average score for all city roads is 63, placing the network in the fair category. That’s an 11% drop from 2016, when the score was 71, or satisfactory. Officials want to get the score back to 70 in the next eight years and estimate it would cost $1.7 billion.

The report warned that once a score drops below 70, road deterioration accelerates and the cost of repairs “increases rapidly.” Officials also said investing in streets that are in good condition “can extend street asset lifetime and reduce long-term costs.”

“The importance of proactive pavement management funding cannot be overstated,” the report said.

The lower road scores were expected by city leaders, who are grappling with a $5 billion infrastructure funding gap and projected budget deficits in coming years. 

Last year, the San Diego County Grand Jury recommended the city establish a new law that would carve out money from its annual budget to repair the “deplorable” road conditions. A council committee ultimately rejected the recommendation, saying the city needs flexibility in spending on more urgent projects. 

Street repairs are covered by several sources of funding, including a 58-cent gas tax , the half-cent TransNet tax, bonds, state funding and city accounts.

For the 2025 fiscal year, the transportation department has requested $60 million for street maintenance and $168 million for rehabilitation activities. 

Preventative maintenance on pavements could include crack sealing to apply on a thin layer of slurry mixture on the existing pavement surface, which is called a “slurry seal.” More severe streets could need rehabilitation, which could include coating a thick layer of asphalt over an existing street with “fatigue cracking” or potholes, or completely removing and replacing existing pavements via reconstruction.

The transportation department is also requesting a separate dedicated funding stream to fix 17 miles of unpaved roads. The report proposed improving two unimproved streets and alleys per year with about $4.3 million annually — a strategy that would take 85 years.