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NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - For a good portion of the next nine months, Pasco County's Infrastructure Management Services crew chief, Mike Williams will drive every inch of the county's roadways.
He's doing it in the name of a major project that could save the county lots of taxpayer dollars. Williams will drive a van with mounted lasers over every single road to create a digital map of every curve, stripe, and pothole.
“The lasers are measuring the roughness of the surface as well as the roughness of the ride,” Williams said.
The van runs 11 laser beams over each roadway, providing crucial data on when repairs are needed, and how soon.
“As we drive, those 11 points kind of create a wireframe model of the road surface as we are traveling,” Williams told FOX 13 during a ride along Tuesday.
Pasco County paid contractor IMS close to $1.3 million for this data mapping.
“Yes, it's worth it,” Public Works Director Branford Adumuah said. “It’s worth it and the way that it’s done.”
Quicker and safer than having crews on foot surveying roads -- and perhaps saving them a lot more money in the long run.
“When that maintenance happens, if it happens at the right time then you save a lot of money on that road,” Williams said.
This truck will scan all the main roads by the end of September and then will start on the more residential roads, which will take five months.