Greetings,

Every May we celebrate National Public Works Week and as such, this newsletter will highlight the great work the Department of Public Works accomplishes every day.

The Department of Public Works provides essential services to the residents of Placer County. Here are some of the many things they do:

• Placer County Public Works Road Maintenance maintains approximately 1,050 miles of county roadway infrastructure across urban, rural, foothill, and mountainous terrain. The Division manages a comprehensive pavement preservation and rehabilitation program guided by a data-driven Pavement Management Program and Pavement Condition Index (PCI) analysis. The County’s roadway network represents an estimated $1.5 billion public infrastructure asset and currently maintains an overall network PCI of 70, which is above the statewide average PCI of 65. The pavement program uses detailed roadway condition assessments and lifecycle-based maintenance strategies to prioritize preventive maintenance, resurfacing, overlays, and reconstruction projects in the most cost-effective manner, recognizing that preserving roads in good condition significantly reduces long-term rehabilitation costs.
• In addition to pavement preservation, Road Maintenance performs extensive roadside vegetation management operations and hazardous tree removal, including approximately 400 miles of mowing routes, 450 miles of roadside spraying corridors, and 100 miles of roadside mastication work focused on safety and wildfire risk reduction along roadway shoulders and rights-of-way. Snow removal is also a critical public safety mission, with crews maintaining nearly 400 miles of designated snow routes through around-the-clock winter storm response operations in the Sierra and mountain communities to keep residents, emergency responders, schools, and commerce moving during severe winter weather. The Division also manages critical transportation infrastructure assets including 115 bridges, approximately 6,500 culverts, more than 3,000 drainage inlets, 1000 ADA ramps, 35 maintained traffic signals, roadside signs, traffic striping, and guardrail throughout the county roadway system.
• The Transportation Planning and Traffic Engineering division is responsible for identifying, planning, and funding future infrastructure and projects. This includes land development review, long range planning documents, traffic safety, regional coordination, and traffic fee programs. Right now, this division is working to prepare an updated Local Roadway Safety Plan and Active Transportation Plan.
• The Stormwater Quality program is responsible for protecting lakes, creeks, and streams from pollutant impacts through outreach and education initiatives, implementation of development controls, construction activity oversight, water quality monitoring, commercial and industrial site inspections, and implementation of applicable regulations. The Floodplain Management program minimizes damage and financial losses associated with development in and near identified floodplains through implementation of educational and program initiatives and applicable construction and land development standards. This division also participates in FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, which provides a discount to homeowners on flood insurance.
• Utility staff maintain over 300 miles of sewer pipe, as well as 52 wastewater pump stations. Part of that maintenance includes cleaning and video inspection of every pipe on a 10-year cycle, repair or replacement as needed and emergency response often during large storm events and after hours.  DPW also manages garbage collection and recycling in unincorporated PC and through our programs annually recycle approximately 240,000 tons of material, which would equate to covering 265 football fields 3 feet high with recycled material.
• Transit
  • Placer County Transit (PCT) provides fixed route and on-demand Dial-A-Ride services in unincorporated Placer County as well as the incorporated cities/towns of Colfax, Lincoln, Rocklin, and Loomis through collaborative funding partnerships. PCT also offers a vanpool program as an option to help residents with long-distance commuting as well as the Placer Commuter Express, a commuter bus service operating with stops between Downtown Sacramento and the Colfax Amtrak station. On an annual basis, PCT services transport approximately 241,000 passengers and provide 858,000 service miles.
  • Tahoe Truckee Area Regional Transit (TART) provides fixed route bus service within and between the communities of North Lake Tahoe and Truckee. Complimentary ADA Paratransit service is provided to requested destinations within ¾ mile of fixed route bus service. The county also contracts for the TART Connect Microtransit service within Eastern Placer County offering first mile/last mile connections to fixed route bus service and within specified zones. On an annual basis, TART services transport approximately 585,000 passengers and provide 1,332,000 service miles.
• DPW implements many capital projects to improve our roads, bridges, pipelines and pump stations including:
  • Yankee Jims Bridge replacement will replace the (one of the oldest bridges in the state) in the American River Canyon with extremely difficult conditions and will provide a safe crossing for public and emergency vehicles between Weimar and the Foresthill Divide.
  • Placer Parkway Phase 1 will construct 1.5 miles of new roadway between SR65 and N. Foothills Boulevard along with a parallel waterline. These pieces of infrastructure will ultimately bring much needed traffic relief and water capacity into West Placer.
  • American River Debris Removal project to remove the remains of the State Highway 49 bridge that collapsed back in the 1960s. Our project team removed over 450 tons of steel and 600 cubic yards of concrete from the riverbed to return the river to its natural state.
  • Foresthill Bridge Weld Inspection and Repair project inspected 288 weld points and made repairs as necessary to ensure the bridge is safe for many years to come.
  • North Auburn Sewer project to install 8,400 feet of new sewer pipe was completed to alleviate sewer capacity constraints in North Auburn to facilitate further economic development.
  • Fanny Bridge replacement project was substantially completed and opened to traffic at the beginning of 2026. The project cost $10.7M and replaced the 90-year-old bridge with a single span precast structure with dedicated bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks.

Placer County is great because of the many dedicated and hardworking employees such as those in DPW. Please thank them when you see them out and about working on projects that make Placer such a desirable place to live.

As always, I encourage you to contact my office with any questions or concerns you may have. You may do so by calling 530-889-4081 or via email at crivera@placer.ca.gov.

Anthony DeMattei

Placer County Supervisor, District 3