Prince George, B.C.-  Prince George spent $7 million dollars on road rehabilitation this year, and  that  meant  66 lane kilometers of roadway received upgrades and 365 metres of sidewalks were upgraded,  but the full list of  sidewalk work  was not completed.

Blake  McIntosh, General Manager of   Roads and Fleet  has advised  Mayor and Council  there was a problem with the contractor hired for the sidewalk upgrades, “It didn’t meet our expectations and was not finishing the work in a timely manner  so we terminated that contract and went to the second bidder.”  Unfortunately,   Mother Nature didn’t cooperate  to  allow that  second contractor enough time to finish the list of projects.   Those left over sidewalk  projects will be added to whatever work is planned for 2017.

There  is something new in the way of crosswalks.  The city has applied  cold plastic markings for crosswalks along the newly paved  stretch of  15th Avenue.  It’s a pilot  project  to see if the cold plastic application will  last longer than the painted crosswalk markings.

As for how long the  road rehab will last,  that’s a different matter.  Councillor Brian Skakun  wanted to know  more  about quality control  and testing of new pavement.  McIntosh says the contractor has in-house testing  “We do receive all the results to make sure that they achieve our specifications.”   In the case of  roads where “seams” are required to  join the asphalt lanes,  McIntosh says typically hot application is  preferred  and can be achieved during  warm weather “If there is rain in the middle of the process  the hot joint will not be achieved.  Also to note,  it’s preferable to put the joint outside of the wheel path  if the joint is on the  paint line, it will receive less tire  tracking and less wear.”

McIntosh  says a new system  of grading  pavement  to  judge  its lifespan is  now in play.  He says typically, arterial roads  are expected to have a lifespan of  10 to 12 years,  Collector roads  are expected to last 12  to 17 years,  and local residential  roads  can have a lifespan of  up to 25 years. “We’re probably beyond  some of our local ( residential)  roads,  as some of our sub divisions are 40 to 45 years old.  Of note, we do have a consultant on board  and we are establishing a new paving condition index  or measuring  system.  For 2016,  the initial report recommended  condition standard has been achieved .  We are going to  use the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure  pavement  condition rating system.  Arterial roads have been rated,  we’re hoping  to do  50% of the locals next year and   the remaining  50% in the third year and be on a  three year   assessment cycle.  I think that will give us a better indication of how long  treatments are lasting.”