Severe winter weather that went well into spring, as well as the city's pock-marked road network, has the winter maintenance budget running $3.9 million higher than forecast.
Members of the operations committee heard Monday that 10 major weather events took place between January and March – when the city received a near record 244 cm of snow and freezing rain.
That forced them to put more resources into the roughly $20 million a year budget, which was also in the red in 2018 by $2.4 million. The overages so far this year could be reduced if we have milder weather this fall and winter.
In addition to the added snow removal, Randy Halverson, the city's director of linear infrastructure services, said demand for pothole repair was also at a near record levels.
While they normally repair about 55,000 potholes each spring, this year they have already fixed about 84,375 of them, pushing that budget area into the red.
In response to a question from Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh, Halverson said progress is being made on their pothole study. Crews are photographing and tracking where the repairs are being made, he said, and following up to see how long they are lasting.
An informal update can be prepared for each committee meeting, he said, “or we could come in with a separate report.”
And thanks to additional gas tax funding from the federal government, a total of 125 kilometres of large asphalt spreader patches will be completed this year, eight times more than usual. Some of the work will be done at night to avoid traffic disruptions and the focus will be on major city roads.
Line painting is underway, with 2,100 kilometres of lines to be completed using a total of 79,000 litres of paint.
