Roads Rehashed at Council
Monday, June 11, 2012 @ 5:58 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The state of the roads in Prince George will take centre stage at tonight’s meeting of City Council as the Superintendent of Operations, Bill Gaal, will make a presentation on road rehabilitation and maintenance. The presentation is meant to share with the public all aspects of the road maintenance and rehabilitation decisions, and the challenges facing the department.
Staff will also come back with their report on possible funding. The report suggests that if Council puts Fort George Park upgrades on hold for another year, and gets permission to use money that was being saved for the upgrades to 4th Avenue, a full $1.75 million may be available for road rehab projects. That would be enough money to do some of the following projects, listed in order of priority:
- Ospika Blvd from Range to Davis $453,000
- Ospika Blvd from Davis to Tyner $473,000
- Foothills Blvd from North Nechako to Foothills Bridge $550,000
- Tabor Blvd from 1st to 5th $417,000
The state of the roads, the spark behind Councillor Cameron Stolz’s motion that looks to gain a bigger piece of the resource pie for roads and infrastructure. He is calling for support to pursue a Fair Share agreement with the Province similar to the one which is in effect for the some communities in the Peace. The Fair Share agreement is meant to offer funding to those communities which provide the infrastructure for industry, (service companies, and employees) but cannot gain tax from industry because the industry is not within City limits.
And Councillor Dave Wilbur will bring forth a notice of motion that calls for his Council colleagues to support a resolution that would call for the Union of B.C. Municipalities to press the senior levels of government to change the criteria in the Federal Gas Tax program agreement so maintenance and replacement of roadways would be eligible for funding.
Comments
Correct me if I’m wrong, this $1.7 million isn’t for the upgrade on 4th Avenue. The DBIA members are paying for the upgrade. This money was for fixing the sewer and water lines on 4th Avenue. The City asked the DBIA members to hold off on the 4th Avenue upgrade until the City could get enough money together to fix the sewer and water.
The reason was, the City didn’t want to have to pay to dig up 4th Avenue after it had been upgraded because this would cost the City a fortune to replace the upgrades. The sewer and water lines are in very bad shape on 4th.
I think the DBIA has held off for more than 10 years now and it’s becoming clear that the City has no intention of using the funds for what they were meant to be used for.
Doesn’t anyone else drive on 15th Ave, this is the worst major road in PG, you can’t even avoid the horizontal cracks or whatever you want to call them. I am embarrassed daily when I have to drive on this street.
I find in ironic that there is a story 4 before this one that talks about the enchancement grants being handed out. This is what is wrong with this city…what is more important? Safe and passable roads or a bunch of “nice to have” programs? I’m all for fun….when the work is done!
After reading this I went to the city’s website to look at the cap-ex spending(link below) One thing really stuck out while scrolling through, the description of how computer dollars will be spent from 2011-2014 are exactly the same every year.
Two possible reasons for this,it is really just a big slush fund with no accounting on how money is spent or laziness on the part of whoever put the plan together who thought it was easier to C&P rather than give accurate details.
With almost $4 million spent in those 4 years, it is unacceptable for the city to present a document such as this to the taxpayer.
http://princegeorge.ca/cityservices/finance/Financial%20Statements/Capital2010-2019.pdf
The map for the projects currently funded shows 15th to be resurfaced between Opsika and Central.
This is the map location (last page):
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2012/2012_06_11/documents/Rpt_Road_Rehab_MERGED.pdf
This is a presentation which shows different techniques costs and expected outcomes.
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2012/2012_06_11/documents/Rpt_Road_Rehab_ppt.pdf
And the final part of the road presentation
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2012/2012_06_11/documents/Rpt_Capital_Road_Rehab.pdf
lonesome sparrow wrote: “the description of how computer dollars will be spent from 2011-2014 are exactly the same every year.”
That is not the only line item I find that in.
Have a look at this 5 year financial plan approved by Council
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2012/2012_05_07/documents/BL8421_Merged.pdf
Notice that the “Road rehabilitation reserve” is down for $3.5 million each year from 2012 to 2016. In the presentation tonight one of the “challenges” identified is that the effect of inflation on matrials has been about 14%/year which is noted as far exceeding the consumer price index.
Of course, it also states that the funding provided is about 50% or what it should ideally be.
So, based on 9.5% increase of the combination of material (14% for 60%materials content and 2.5% 40% labour content)
So here is something around what we should really be looking at just to maintain the current level of the roads rehabilitation program. That, of course, provides a downward spiral of continuing poorer maintained roads in place.
2012$3.500 million
2013$3.833 million
2014$4.197 million
2015$4.595 million
2016$5.032 million
If we were to look at the figures from 2013 on as a 100% increase as is needed according to City staff, the figures would look like this:
2012$3.500 million
2013$7.665 million
2014$8.393 million
2015$9.191 million
2016$10.064 million
I am looking forward to the discussion tonight.
BTW, I have looked at similar 5 year planning projections from other cities in BC and ours appears to be the only one that does not include at least a cost COLA component.
I agree gus that they have just slapped numbers across the board for things like road repair and snow removal with no considerations for inflation and material cost increases but with the computers there are statements such as this for 4 years running….
“We expect to: expand licenses to Questica to allow more managers direct access;further development of the City’s main web site;further configeration of Tempest to include better management of the Garbage container inventory;and expansion of VMWare to further offset hardware cost.”
….not exactly a proper accounting of how the money will be spent as I do not believe all of this will occur for 4 consecutive years. Another case of slapping something across the board and tossing it out there. If it is a four year project to inventory garbage containers we really are sunk:). Shoddy! We deserve better.
I’ll keep it simple…. why the dickens was this not done each year etc for the budgets? Why now? Is it due to the pressure from the people? Oh, I forget, get it done before we spend more money on the core review………..
Furthermore…who on city administration is ultimately accountable for allowing such drivel to be posted on the city’s main web site.
Gus
Thank you for the link to the map or resurfacing projects. I took a look at it and I see one glaring error that I know of. It shows resurfacing taking place on Domano that was already resurfaced in the last two years. That is one error, I wonder if there are others.
The paving on Domano is supposed to cover the Trent to Gladstone intersections. The one small problem is that there are two Gladstone intersections. I haven’t been able to find the answer to which Gladstone intersection the city is referring to.
Looking at the map (first link in Gus’ post) it looks like the Trent to Gladstone section is from Trent to the second Gladstone.
“Doesn’t anyone else drive on 15th Ave, this is the worst major road in PG” .. Green complained about Tabor, as she uses it daily going to “work”, and it just happened to be added to the list when they reassessed the initial list. 22nd should be shut down and detours set up, it is deplorable.
If the dopes did some crack sealing the issue wouldn’t be as bad as we see it today.
Just wonder how much these bad roads are costing us for repairs on our vehicles? I have been VERY careful about avoiding holes and still, I hit one every once in awhile. Green should be forced to drive up and down 15th everyday.
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