By Andrew de Souza

Roadwork backlog $50 million

Dec 28, 2010 | 5:36 AM

Years of insufficient funding has resulted in a more than $50 million backlog of work to the City of Prince Albert’s road network.

“There’s always a number of things that you’re unable to get to in a year,” said city director of public works, Colin Innes. “We’re like all other cities in that there’s work that is still out there that needs to be done but hasn’t been done in past years so there’s a backlog.”

The size of the backlog was released last week in the city’s 2011 budget documents.

According to the report from public works, the city would need an annual roadway budget of $3.5 million in order to catch up. However, the department only requested $1.6 million due to budget restrictions.

Innes said the department was being pragmatic and hoped the report would raise awareness that more would be need in the future.

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“That’s what we’re trying to communicate to council,” said Innes. “We have infrastructure and it is in the process of depreciating and that there’s more emphasis that we really would like to be placing on doing these kind of repairs.”

“Everything in here is all things that are required,” Innes added. “That’s where it gets very difficult … but at the same time I recognize that we need money to do different things.”

Roads will decay without funds

Innes said that without addition funds, the city’s roads would noticeably degrade over several years.

“It’s not something that in one or two years that it’s all of a sudden going to go from being an acceptable condition to being totally unacceptable,” said Innes.

“If you don’t start addressing it, over time in 10 to 25-year window, you will see a recognizable decrease overall.”

Innes said that under the current funding structure, roads can still be maintained. Some, which are already too degraded, won’t be repaired, but instead will be replaced when there’s time and money.

Increases requested before

According to the department’s report, an increase in funding was first requested in 2006. At that time, the backlog was estimated at $27 million and the department was hoping for $2.5 million per year.

Council of the day didn’t approve the request and the backlog, and the money required to deal with it, increased.

“Roadway work is getting more expensive and more money is required there and the backlog will continue to grow unless you’re able to raise funding levels up to address that,” said Innes.

He pointed out that while roads needed money, so did everything else in the city, and Prince Albert’s situation was far from unique.

“This is something for all the infrastructure and buildings that the city has and it’s an issue across all of Canada,” he said.

City council will debate the requests of the public works department and other departments in January during budget deliberations.

adesouza@panow.com