No way out

Road funding options lay bare the scale of the County’s dilemma

There are no good choices when it comes to County roads. There are too many kilometres (1,047 kilometres) and too few residents. The backstory and context have been presented in these pages many times before.

But something has changed. It may have taken 25 years, but Shire Hall may be ready for an honest, adult conversation about its roads this week.

In what may be a harbinger of a new age of enlightenment about what this municipality can and cannot do, the County finance director, Arryn McNichol, has produced a clear and thoughtful road map laying out various routes Council may consider to restore the County’s crumbling road network. The director has also presented the staggering costs alongside each path.

None are easy. Likely impossible. Yet, for the first time in decades, Council has received an honest description of the problem. And an honest assessment of the cost. The sheer weight of the financial lift hints at why the topic has been plugged with cold patch and chewing gum for a generation.

Cutting to the chase: The roads discussion paper presents two options: Throw $25.2 million on roads every year for the next decade to produce a good rating. To do this, however, means driving property taxes higher by about 40 per cent. Or spend $20.1 million every year. Roads would be marginally better than they are now, but would trigger a tax hike of about 30 per cent . Neither of these options seems plausible.

But muddling along, as the County has done for decades, also poses challenges. It means more repairs, uncomfortable roads, increased damage claims, rising maintenance costs, and putting off big repairs.

More from the discussion paper: The current condition is rated with a PCI of 62 (Pavement Condition Index of 100 being excellent), which is considered fair. However, the County’s mix includes some poor and very poor roads (37 per cent of County roads are slotted in this category). It also includes roads that are considered good, very good and excellent (54 per cent of County roads are rated in these three bands).

Option 1—spending $25.2 million more per year—aims to get County roads to a PCI of 83, with no individual road falling below a PCI of 40. Option 2—$20.1 million—may bring municipal roads up to a rating of 68. To do so would require many millions of taxpayer dollars pumped into roads each year to make only an incremental change in their quality rating.

The municipality has received 157 damage claims from drivers using County roads over the past four years. It has paid out on 66 of these claims for a total of about $45,000 or about $11,250 per year to reimburse claimants.

The report lays out the challenge for Council. It has invested $28 million into urban and rural roads over the past five years—an average of $5.6 million annually. The options outlined in the discussion paper represent as much as a five-fold increase in spending, a massive hit to the property taxpayer, and a strain on the County’s capacity— staffing and equipment—to do the work.

This discussion paper, combined with the sheer magnitude of the proposed costs, will, at last, force Council to confront its roads dilemma. It may also move the conversation beyond the demand for better roads to one of understanding the trade-offs necessary to achieve them.

Are residents ready for a 40 per cent increase in the tax levy in exchange for better roads? Are our neighbours? What does it mean in a community already considered unaffordable? What municipal services would we be prepared to forgo for better roads?

Trimming won’t cut it. The proposed road spending options represent up to a third of the County’s current spending. To implement either option would require an utter restructuring of local government, leaving many services, programs and facilities on the cutting room floor.

Council’s response to the new finance director’s discussion paper on roads will be informative. Arryn McNichol has produced an honest and clear assessment of the desperate challenge of the County’s road network and upkeep costs. It isn’t pretty. There is no recommendation, just the cold, hard facts.

Furthermore, the report reads as though it assumes Council and residents are adults. It assumes we can handle the truth and that it doesn’t have to be dressed up, manipulated or shaped for public consumption.