Road to discovery

Council approves $1.2 million for road surface treating in 2014

Too many roads. Too few dollars. It is a fact of PrinceEdwardCounty that has been evident for many years. Ever since the province downloaded maintenance and upkeep of 1,000 kilometres of roads onto the backs of property tax payers in this community, council has struggled to keep up.

Yet for some on County council, the growing chasm between the needs of County roads and council’s ability to fund their upkeep seems a fresh and urgent problem—rather than the chronic and intractable issue it is.

“When do we tell taxpayers we can’t afford our roads?” asked Brian Marisett, councillor for Picton. “When do we tell them that either we borrow a whole lot of money, or the standard of their roads will go down?”

In fact, municipal staff have explained the challenges of its underfunded roads diligently to council over the past few years. Last December, council was told it would cost more than $566 million to rehabilitate its road system—an amount so unimaginably high it would consume the County’s entire tax levy for next 17 years, leaving no money for anything else.

Mayor Peter Mertens and his colleagues in the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus have aggressively lobbied the province for more money for roads and infrastructure.

County staff, and others, have made it clear that without substantial investment by the province—the County can, at best, use its current resources to slow the decline. Although known for the past several years, the issue never fails to catch some council members by surprise.

SURFACE TREATMENT
Last week, council approved $1.2 million in surface treatment for 51 kilometres of County roads. More than half will be spent to improve the sorry state of County Road 24 (Point Petre road) and Massassauga Road. See sidebar above.

Borderline impassable roads, including Burr and Lakeside Drive, are also in line for surface treatment. But equally poor roads such as Salem, Danforth and Luck’s Crossroad, were passed over this year. Treating these roads would have added $341,358 to the budget—money the County doesn’t have.

Hillier councillor Alec Lunn was upset that Danforth Road, in particular, had missed the cut again.

But rather than rally support for his cause, Lunn’s defence of Hillier roads instead served to elicit complaints by councillors upset that roads in their wards were also overlooked.

That prompted Athol councillor Jamie Forrester to make a show of suggesting a special meeting of council to allocate road work by ward.

“So council can decide which roads need to be fixed,” Forrester said sarcastically.

It has taken years for the municipality to wrest the assessment of its roads priorities from the council table and put it in the hands of its roads managers. These folks weigh the condition of each road, its usage and its importance as an artery or linkage, combined with a cost/benefit analysis. With so few resources, this multilayered assessment is essential to ensuring the money is spent well.

But it doesn’t prevent earnest representatives from lobbying for their road or second-guessing the evaluation of County staff.

“It gets tiresome,” noted Forrester.

INTO THE GAP
Roads chief Robert McAuley reminded council that tough choices had to made. And that even harder ones have yet to be made. He reiterated that his team is developing a new five-year roads plan that will detail which roads should be fixed and in what order.

But he also reminded councillors that there would be, in any event, more roads needs than money to fund the repairs.

“We will have to decide how much we can afford and what happens in the gap,” said McAuley, the gap being the unfulfilled roads needs.

“When do we deliver that message?” asked Forrester.

“Sooner or later we need that discussion.”

It will be a tough discussion. When McAuley tables the new five-year roads plan later this summer, the tally could be more than $100 million—more than three times the amount the County collects in taxes each year. Borrowing this money would cost taxpayers more than $500,000 each year for the next 20 years.

Raise taxes or accept that County roads will deteriorate further?

These are indeed tough choices. A fall election likely makes the decision-making harder.