(File Photo/paNOW staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

Pricing pavement

City considers sidewalks in new areas

Jan 8, 2020 | 4:51 PM

The City of Prince Albert is pondering installing new sidewalks.

Administrators asked councillors to submit suggestions for areas without sidewalks that might benefit from them.

The department of public works will review the recommendations and prepare a report for council on the various options.

“We’ll go out, we’ll measure them up, we’ll price it out, and we’ll bring back a number for [council] so [they] know how much it will cost,” Director of Public Works Wes Hicks told paNOW. “Then council as a whole can decide if they feel that’s where they’d like to spend their money.”

During November’s budget deliberations, council voted to have a report done on the cost of installing sidewalks in areas where significant foot traffic had created paths.

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Coun. Terra Lennox-Zepp moved the motion, and proposed the stretch of land on 15th Street East between Saskatchewan Polytechnic and 15th Ave. East as a possible location that would benefit from a sidewalk. Parts of 2nd Ave. West were also suggested.

Council budgeted $218,090 for sidewalks in 2020, an amount consistent with previous years.

Hicks said those funds are quickly eaten up by repairs.

“Our concrete budgets are very small,” he said.

“It doesn’t take very long to go through the $218,090 when you’re repairing water mains and service connections and broken curbs and gutters and things like that.”

An additional $300,000 of capital is budgeted for sidewalk rehabilitation. This fund is primary used when the reconstruction of roadways or replacement of underground utilities requires construction and concrete work on a large area.

The cost of replacing one block of city sidewalk on both sides of the street is $100,000. For double-wide sidewalks downtown, that number rises to $150,000.

Editor’s note: This story has been amended to make clear which areas were suggested during budget meetings.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom