Area cities will soon decide which pothole-filled streets they will spend millions of dollars resurfacing this year and which ones will have to make due with patching and filling.

Sometimes the decision by road departments doesn’t match the opinions of motorists who drive on these bumpy streets, but officials said numerous factors play a part in the decision making.

>>See what areas local motorist say need the most roadwork done<<

One tool communities use before putting the resurfacing work up for competitive bids is a scorecard that ranks thoroughfares from best to worst. Kettering, which occupies 18.68 square miles in Montgomery County, ranks its streets on a scale from 100 for perfect to 0 for the opposite.

Kettering City engineer Steven Bergstresser, like counterparts in Vandalia, Beavercreek, Centerville and other communities, said that while ratings of pavement conditions are the main deciding factor, other issues influence which ones are done first.

“If one street in a neighborhood is at 40 to 50, but others there are 70 or 80, we might wait until later to address them all,” he said.

Final choices are yet to be made, but Bergstresser has a preliminary list of 25 streets to be done this year. Some included on the list are Cunnington Lane, Daisy Court, Danz Avenue, Dowden Lane, Ghent Avenue and Purdue Road.

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Centerville city engineer Doug Spitler said upcoming development or construction projects in or near a neighborhood can delay resurfacing there. “You don’t want to see heavy equipment tearing up what you just did.”

Kettering hires a consulting firm whose workers drive every street and rate them based on several factors. “The last time we did that was 2012, but we are continually updating that. If a resident tells us about a street in really poor condition, we’ll go look at it,” Bergstresser said.

Kettering will advertise for bids in March after deciding which streets to pave. “We’ll spend about $1 million on that this year. Once we compile the list, we’ll post it on the city website,” he said.

In the meantime, crews in area cities are filling potholes with a temporary cold-patch method.

Beavercreek, which is responsible for 250-center-line miles of road over 26.4 square miles, will expand its paving budget if voters approve a city local income tax May 7.

If it passes, “we have a five-year plan for $35 million worth of improvements,”city engineer Jeff Moorman said. About $1 million a year would go for resurfacing thoroughfares and residential streets.

Top priorities among busy roads include Kemp and parts of Grange Hall, Shakertown and North Fairfield roads.

Vandalia, where residents made a 0.25 percent tax for police, fire and streets permanent in 2010, will use some of those revenues to do about $500,000 of paving it would be strapped to fund otherwise.

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the cost of asphalt has climbed about 11 percent per year since 2005, compared to 4 percent for concrete.

Fixed paving budgets mean fewer miles can be completed.

Centerville, which has budgeted $1.1 million for resurfacing this year, plans to gradually increase that to $1.25 million over the next five years so it won’t have to do less.

“This is one of the last places you want to cut back because then your problems are quickly compounded and you’ll never get caught up,” city manager Greg Horn said. “We may not be able to keep reinvesting in our streets at the current rate if more state cutbacks come our way, or if local income tax earnings don’t continue to slowly rise. We are determined to try.”

Vandalia public works manager Rob Cron said the city resurfaces “about 20 streets a year. We hope to get 12 to 15 years out of each one before we have to go back and do it again.”

A roadway carrying more and heavier traffic needs to be done more often. The seven miles of U.S. 40 that run through the city are paved by the state and have been done in 1992 and 2003, Cron said.

Local highway projects that include federal funding — in many cases up to 80 percent of the construction cost — are coordinated by the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission and are not included in city resurfacing budgets.

Those projects are approved on a competitive basis.

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Motorists who drive to the city of Dayton from the south may wish it could be finished this year, but should be pleased to know MVRPC has scheduled the 2014 resurfacing of 1.31 miles of South Main Street (Ohio 48), from River Park Drive to Patterson Boulevard. The $5.5 million job includes $1.37 million of local funding from the city of Dayton.

Other 2014 jobs selected through the MVRPC process include reconstruction of the Wilmington Pike and Dorothy Lane intersection in Kettering and the Chambersburg-Bellefontaine Road intersection in Huber Heights, widening a 0.63-mile section of South Dixie Drive in Vandalia and North Dixie Drive south of the city limits from Bartley Road to just south of Benchwood Road.

“Grant money can stretch local dollars and allow us to do more projects,” Moorman said.

“We all have wish lists. Every city has streets we wish we could pave first, but we can’t. We all have projects we would like to do that wouldn’t score very well if we applied for grants.”

MVRPC senior planner Paul Arnold said the agency is currently soliciting for new projects that begin in 2018.

Resident requests are taken into account. “We also look at accident statistics to pinpoint problem areas,” Moorman said. Centerville’s view is that “if we don’t resurface on a timely basis, it’s going to cost us more when they deteriorate,” James said.

Spitler said maintaining streets is crucial for another reason: “There’s a correlation between condition of streets and neighborhood upkeep. Residents tend to maintain their homes better.”