$10M To Be Spent On City Roads & Sidewalks
Additional residential roads to be rehabilitated this year thanks to CW funds chart courtesy CPG
Prince George, BC – With the challenge of this winter's snow removal soon to dissolve, Prince George City Councillors know what's coming – potholes…
Several made remarks to that effect at Monday night's council meeting, but, to that end, they received a report detailing almost $3-million dollars in extra road and sidewalk projects slated for the coming year…meaning just under $10-million dollars will be spent on road and transportation-related projects in Prince George this paving season.
During last fall's 2014 budget discussions, councillors decided to bolster the $7-million dollar road improvement budget by earmarking the remaining $2.7-million dollars in the Community Works Fund for extra road rehab (shown in chart above), gravel road improvements, sidewalk replacements and wheelchair ramp improvements.
In highlighting the difference the extra dollars will make, the City's Superintendent of Operations, Bill Gaal, says $925-thousand dollars will be spent on gravel road maintenaince this year, compared to $200-thousand last year. Another $716-thousand will go towards sidewalk replacement projects, compared to the usual budget of $100-thousand for concrete works around the city.
"It's great to see other roads – outside the Bowl and outside the immediate residential areas – getting the treatment that this is reporting. That's fantastic," said Councillor Dave Wilbur. "It's been a long time coming, I think some of it was promised way back at amalgamation time, so it's about time that we got to it."
Councillor Cameron Stolz said when he made the motion to use the Community Works funds, the dollar amount was unknown, "So it's nice to see the final amount is a staggering amount of improvements we're going to see in our community."
Comments
*sniff* *sniff*….smells like an election.
Yesterday in another post about the roads Gus wrote: Comment Posted by: gus on February 25 2014 11:04 PM
BTW, if they had worked with the City to find a more appropriate location for such a facility as has been done in all those other communities that have such facilities, the facility would likely be operating by now.
Get your facts straight…..
Gus, They did try to meet with the city on numerous occasions and the city would not meet with them. The group did find other sites but were shut down every time. The applicants would not listen either. It had to be “that site” according to them. “Other Site”S” were available…the city would only listen to the applicants.
How can you tell the 2015 games are coming. All roads done….
Now watch your taxes climb
There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye. Lets keep in mind that this ***extra*** money is a result of the Federal Government Gas Tax Fund, which amounts of approx. $2.7 million per year.
So our actual road budgets was approx. $5 Million and is has been increased to $7 million by adding $2 Million in Gas Tax Funds. (2014 money). The money for the gravel roads, sidewalks etc; is an additional $2.7 million that has been sitting in an account at City Hall for a few years. (One might wonder why is was not used sooner)
So in essence we can thank the Federal Government for this additional money, and of course all of us who have bought gas over the years, because this is in effect our own money being returned to us.
Lets not go overboard and give credit where it is not due.
Letsbe thankful for the extra money this year. Next year issues will be dealt with next year.
Imagine, spending all the money on a side road on the Hart when all the residential streets around it are crap. Sorta like the logging solution to bad press. Looking at a mountain from the highway you would think they don’t take very big patches of timber, go around that mountain off the beaten path and out of sight and there isn’t a stick left standing. In other words, make the visible beautiful but don’t worry about what the passerbys don’t see.
Posted by: Huh on February 26 2014 9:34 AM
Imagine, spending all the money on a side road on the Hart when all the residential streets around it are crap.
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It’s a frontage road that rarely gets plowed and has maybe 2 dozen residences on it. Yes, things that make you go, “hmmmm?”
Actually, that particular frontage road seems to get plowed way sooner than any of the residential streets out here. I don’t know if it is because of the senior center or senior housing or what, but even the school bus routes seem to take a back seat to that frontage road. It’s not like it is the only access into Timmys or Home Hardware, so I have no idea why it seems to get preferential treatment. And to make matters worse, they don’t simply plow it before doing the residential area, they actually plow it and then leave for a couple of weeks before coming back up and doing the neighbourhoods. I thought maybe somehow it fell under the regional district and highways, but apparently not if the city is repaving it.
Maybe some one who lives on it is a generous donor at election time. Maybe. You never know.
For those that feel this is for winter games – give your head a shake. Do you really think these areas are where people would go if they were involved with winter games? Not likely.
Beat me to it guesswhat. I suspect the games whiners will blame the games for every dime the city spends over the next year.
On a related note, they should work on more frontage roads along the hart. All of the little side accesses should be removed and all entry and exit to the highway funnelled along frontage roads to the nearest set of lights.
It’s not about the winter games. It’s about election votes
Hello city hall anyone home knock knock, don’t hide I see you.
How about Marleau and the frontage road between Marleau and Bon Voyage. Heavy car and truck traffic from two large subdivisions, Access to hwy 16 west for those coming out of the Whalleys area. No sidewalks, heavy pedestrian traffic with people walking to and from the Whalleys area. Students walking to and from a school and bus drop offs. No room for the city bus to get off the road. Both these roads poorly maintained with no consideration of the heavy traffic.
Oh city engineers quit with the back slope on sidewalks. Your first clue might be the amount of people on the roads and not using the sidewalks. They say its an engineering standard. Well my thought on this is when engineering students put the light weight shell of a Volkswagen in some interesting spot and think that is a big deal. Want to impress me, do it with a fully functioning car then apply those skills to sidewalks and potholes.
^^^^Seamutt. Guess you will have to wait for 30 years like the Haldi area. LOL
How about the old Cariboo the cities part, it is already falling apart again, most of the potholes filled last year, are here again and will only get worse
Giscome Road from the Old Cariboo Highway to Blackburn Road is disgusting as well. They did about 100 yards up to the old Ruff’s place last year and from Blackburn road east to the top of Bonnett Hill but the worst part is the part they forgot about.
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