Orland Park may seek road report card

• Reprints

Updated: February 27, 2012 9:49AM

Orland Park may turn to technology to raise its street smarts.

Village trustees will consider next month hiring an engineering firm to do a high-tech analysis of village streets to find out what condition they’re in. The findings could help in better allocating money for street repairs, village officials said.

At an initial cost of $304,000, the study would use video cameras, lasers and sensors mounted on a “Ghostbusters-type vehicle” to gauge a street’s smoothness and overall health, Ed Wilmes, Orland Park’s director of public works and engineering, told trustees at a recent village board committee meeting.

Typically, public works crews would have to dig up a chunk of the street to examine its condition, Wilmes said.

At the Feb. 6 village board meeting, trustees are expected to vote on hiring Applied Research Associates for the initial street analysis.

The company is based in Albuquerque, N.M., and has an office in Champaign. It provides pavement analysis services to the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, is a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on weapons effectiveness and also builds unmanned reconnaissance robots.

Because of Orland Park’s rapid housing and commercial growth during the 1980s and ‘90s, a “great percentage of streets came in at the same time,” Wilmes said. The village says 25 years is about the maximum lifespan for a typical street, depending on its traffic load.

Patching and sealing can be used to temporarily extend the life of a street, but in some instances it’s in such poor condition that rebuilding it is the only option, Wilmes said.

Once Applied Research Associates finishes its study, village officials will get a scorecard showing the condition of all Orland Park streets. There are about 280 miles of village streets.

Village manager Paul Grimes said the information would serve as a “long-range planning tool” in helping village officials more objectively “determine what streets are a priority” for repair or reconstruction.