Road woes

County completes roads needs assessment, recommends path forward

At last Thursday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, council was presented with the dismal state of the County’s road infrastructure. The County’s roads are deteriorating faster than they can be maintained. Based on staff road evaluations in 2019, the replacement costs to improve road conditions from poor and fair to good are estimated to be over $163 million. To put this in context, the County’s annual operating levy is $40.3 million, meaning the resources just aren’t available to bring roads up to a proper state.

County staff evaluated road sections in the summer of 2019. All of the County’s roads were driven and rated based on ride comfort and physical distress characteristics and recorded in one-kilometer sections. Chief Administrative Officer Marcia Wallace told council the cost to fix all the roads is unrealistic so they are using a smart, evidence-based approach to figure out how to best fund road repairs this year.

Staff are proposing to spend $100,000 on crack sealing, $1.2 million on surface treatment programs and $3 million on generic roadwork for a total of $4.3 million.

Councillor Janice Maynard worried that council would just be dumping money, putting a band-aid solution onto an empty hole, and that roads that were the most in need weren’t being fixed. “I have some questions on the validity of data collected. I would have much preferred that we take a year and try and get rid of some of the red on the chart. At least make some of the roads passable. There are long stretches where they are not safe to travel. If we aren’t redoing the platforms, I don’t think we are making a good long-term investment,” said Maynard.

Acting Director of Operations Pat Heffernan assured Maynard that staff would do the best they could with what resources they have available. “Obviously we are going to do the best we can this year. We’ve picked roads that we can address and be successful at improving the condition. If some of the sections are severe enough that we can’t manage to maintain them with traditional methods, it was suggested that maybe we should return them to gravel and put calcium on them until we can address them properly to make them safer,” said Heffernan.

According to Development Coordinator John Gooding, staff is also recommend data validation and public consultation to incorporate asset management principles into the Road Needs Study. The goal is to best align local needs with road infrastructure that can be sustainably maintained and meets technical, regulatory and safety requirements. “In the past it would be top-down. You would look at a road, applying a metric saying ‘it’s bad and this is what we are going to do to fix it.’ Now we are taking an approach where it is bottom-up. Getting the feedback and understand what the users are and what is required out of that road, and then how can we respond with the best engineered low-cost solution that meets minimum maintenance standards, and is safe and cost-effective through its life cycle,” said Gooding.

Director of Development Services Peter Moyer agreed, saying this will allow for a better process. “After we get approval, the plan is to sit down and put a work plan together on how we can coordinate all staff and operations and development services. See how we can lay out and plan our our works,” said Moyer.

A report was also received at the meeting with considerations for County Road 49—resulting in two options: rubblize and replace with hot mix asphalt pavement at an estimated cost of $18.3 million, or and rubblize and replace with Portland cement concrete pavement with an estimated cost of $23 million.

Council approved authorization to issue a Request for Proposal estimated at between $300- $400,000, which could be paid for from the ‘generic roads’ portion of the 2020 approved capital budget, if approved by council. It moves forward to the March 24 regular council meeting to be officially approved.

Councillor Brad Nieman was happy too see progress being made. “I am very happy to see this. I am glad to see we have a list we are going to work with. By having a list and a plan, maybe we will start making headway,” said Nieman.