Getting road money approved at a town meeting is one of the most frustrating parts of the job. You know which roads need work. You know roughly what it's going to cost. But when you stand up in front of the board without a clear written plan, the conversation goes sideways fast. Someone asks about a road in their neighborhood. Someone questions whether the estimates are real. Someone wants to know why this road and not that one.

A Capital Improvement Plan doesn't just answer those questions. It ends them. Here's how to build one that actually gets approved.

Start With Condition Data

You can't build a credible CIP without knowing what condition your roads are in. That's the non-negotiable starting point. If you haven't done a condition assessment yet, start there first — even a simplified Good/Fair/Poor/Failed rating of your network is enough to build from.

Once you have condition ratings, the logic follows naturally. Failed roads go in Year 1. Poor roads go in Year 2. Fair roads go in Years 3 and 4. Good roads get monitored and crack-sealed in Year 5. You're not guessing anymore — you're working from data.

Assign Treatments Based on Condition

Each condition level maps to a treatment type. This is how the math works:

Condition	PCI Range	Treatment	Typical Cost
Good	70–100	Crack seal	$1–2 / sq yd
Fair	55–69	1" Mill & Overlay	$6–10 / sq yd
Poor	40–54	2" Mill & Overlay	$10–16 / sq yd
Failed	0–39	Reconstruction	$30–50 / sq yd

Use your actual local contractor rates — not national averages. The board will trust numbers they can verify against real bids they've seen before.

Build the Five-Year Table

Once you have conditions and costs, lay it out year by year. Every road that needs work gets assigned to a year based on its condition and priority. Add up the totals. That's your CIP.

What the Board Actually Cares About

Most selectmen and town councilors are not engineers. They're not going to scrutinize your PCI scores or your deduct value calculations. What they care about is three things: which roads are the priority, why those roads and not others, and what it's going to cost.

Your CIP answers all three. The condition rating explains the priority. The treatment assignment explains the approach. The cost estimate — built from real contractor rates — gives them a number they can budget to. That's the whole conversation.

Present It Simply

Don't show up with a spreadsheet. Show up with a one-page printed summary — Year 1 roads and costs, Year 2 roads and costs, out to Year 5. Total cost at the bottom. A note about your methodology. That's it.

The more complicated you make it, the more questions you create. Keep it simple and let the data speak.