Road Patching Budget Unchanged

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 08:58 PM

Prince George, B.C.- The budget for road maintenance in Prince George is unchanged from last year, Director of Operations, Bill Gaal says “We’re holding our own.”

Right now, that budget is at $3.59 million dollars.

The full picture on how much the road repair budget will have to be boosted at some time in the future will be presented to Council in the future, but for the time being, there won’t be any boost in the budget.

Councillor Garth Frizzell says given the number of potholes, and the cost of patching, that means each pothole costs about $43 dollars to repair.

In 2010, the following repairs were made:

· Cold patched potholes 3,485

· Hot patched potholes 17,861

· Total number of patched potholes 21,346

· Meters of Patched cracks5,057 m

· Overlays (m2) 4,251 m2

· Meters of Crack seal16,914 m

This is not to be confused with the road rehabilitation budget. Road rehabilitation covers major paving projects under the capital plan. That budget was $3.4 million last year, and the proposal is for an increase to $3.5 this year.

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Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 08:58 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: who? on February 24 2011 8:09 AM

“We’re holding our own.”
wow, thats a statement...holding our own to what standard, the status quo? what a joke this road program and town is. what would be interesting to see out of their stats is how many of the same potholes have been "repaired" how many times...

Posted by: opine on February 24 2011 9:39 AM

"...what would be interesting to see out of their stats is how many of the same potholes have been "repaired" how many times..."

Unfortunately there are not a lot of options to repairing pot holes. Hot and cold patching are temporary solutions as the base gravels compaction has been comprimized so that any asphalt used to fill the hole is destined to fail. Add to this that the edges of the pot holes are not uniform so it is impossible to get proper compaction at the edges and you will definitely not get adhesion to the existing asphalt - so the edges just keep growing.

The only semi permanent solution is to cut the edges of the pot holes so that the edges are clean and straight thus reducing the liklihood of the pot hole returning.

There is still the problem of the compromised base but if the edges hold up then there is less likelihood of 'movement' of the installed material - thus increasing the life expectancy of the repair.

The problem is cost. If there was 21,000 pot holes repaired last year the entire pot hole budget would most likely be used up with around 5,000 pot holes using the cut and repair method. How would we pay for the other 16,000 potholes that we couldn't fix because of budget short fall.

The patching crews are doing the best they can with what they have to work with.

We would need a one time boost of at least four times the current budget to fix these potholes using any other method.

What to do?

Posted by: littleguy on February 24 2011 12:07 PM

im thinking Ospika will require a bit more than $43 per pothole to repair. Its a bit of an obstacle course everytime you drive on it now.

Posted by: seamutt on February 24 2011 12:08 PM

I predict a big increase in road improvements just before the winter games. In the mean time suck it up.

Posted by: boomer on February 24 2011 10:23 PM

Today I saw a worker on Ospika tamping patch in with his foot. You can't say they aren't making an effort.

Posted by: Give more on February 25 2011 1:31 PM

I saw two patches on Victoria Sreet at 1st Ave. Wow! 21,346 potholes patched and only 46,683 left to patch. Yeah, the numbers are really impressive! Job security I guess.

Now, if pothole patching was contracted out to three different companies at $20.00 per pothole,they would absoultely be competing for the work and guess what? The work would get DONE! Imagine that!?