Road paving isn’t the sexiest of topics, but without it, a community would slide from a thriving town to Hicksville.
At its committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday, councillors approved a Tetra Tech Paving Management System Study and endorsed it as the District of Squamish Pavement Master Plan.
Squamish has 120 kilometres of paved — asphalt — roads.
Because they take more of the vehicle load, the busiest “collector” roads, such as Queens Way or Government Road, are prioritized for repairs over less well-used roads in the master plan.
The last study on the condition of our road network was done in 2010.
The recent study found that 11.4 per cent of our roads have severe cracking.
In 2010, seven per cent of roads were that bad.
Twenty-one per cent of Squamish’s pavement is currently in poor or very poor condition.
“The deterioration in pavement condition could be attributed at least in part to an underfunded paving program over the last eight years,” reads the District staff report.
The Tetra Tech report states that $1.1 million per year is the optimal amount to maintain the roads.
The District has been spending about $800,000 per year since 2010.
Previous councils didn’t follow the 2010 budget recommendations, said Jesse Morwood, capital projects manager with the District who presented the Tetra Tech report to council on Tuesday.
The worse roads get, the more it can cost to repair them, Morewood explained.
Ideally, the District would pour $11 million into improving the condition of our roads to catch up, the consultant’s report states.
Given that figure is unrealistic for our tax base, council voted to consider, during budget deliberations, District staff’s recommended paving budget — $1.1 million in 2019 and then increasing yearly to $1.35 over a five-year period. Thus, the budget would include $1.2 million in 2020, $1.3 million in 2021 and $1.35 million onward.
These numbers will be plugged into the council’s budget process for 2019 to be discussed and formally approved.
“You pay now, or you pay later, and we have to keep that in mind during the budget process,” said acting mayor Doug Race. “It is easy to take money off... but the reality is, as the study shows us, we’ll end up paying more.”
The Tetra Tech study for the Paving Master Plan cost the District just under $50,000.
