Long-term infrastructure plan accepted

Mountain View County council has accepted a long-term infrastructure plan as information and forwarded it to 2019 budget deliberations.

The move came by way of motion at the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.

Prepared by the county’s long-range infrastructure planning committee, the plan deals with roads, bridges, buildings, airports, industrial parks and other infrastructure, and covers the years 2018 to 2026.

The plan identifies suggested capital investment in infrastructure, prioritizing which projects could be undertaken in the next five to 10 years, and identifies projects that have been engineered but have been deferred with the reasoning for deferment.

The report has a number of main conclusions, including the following (quoted from the report document):

• Although sound evidence based decisions on historical projects and investments, the county currently has an overall infrastructure capable of delivering the current service levels.
• Capital reoccurring projects, such as re-chipping, re-gravelling, base stabilization and long patching, will have priority in capital funding. It is most important to maintain the current county system first and foremost. In 2017, $4.59 million was spent on capital reoccurring projects.
• It is not recommended to pre-invest in infrastructure that could support high density development in areas that are identified in policy but have not yet received approval. Although the County has strong policy around directing commercial/industrial and high density residential development to specific areas within the county, it is up to developers to purchase the land and propose development to the county. This means that the timing of development will always be uncertain.
• All road upgrades, including local roads, will be considered on a case-by-case basis, requiring a needs assessment and budget. The committee concluded that the number of subdivisions was not considered to be a trigger in itself for local road upgrade.
• Capital upgrade of roads should be focused on the highest traffic areas, and those providing access to the towns where county residents access services. The county purchased new traffic counter hardware in 2017 and compiled traffic counts throughout the county. This will become a yearly program. The results will be tabulated, and trends will be established. Although there are no set values for traffic counts that would currently trigger road upgrades, there is much value to be gained in monitoring the changes and road traffic patterns.
• During 2017, a three-year fallen weight testing program was completed on all county hard surface roads. This data will generate a surface strategy for these roads and, along with the traffic counts will form one of the main evaluation tools for choosing road rehabilitation projects on the current hard surface roads in the future. This data will be ready for use in the development of the 2019 capital and operating budgets.

• Life cycle costs should be a consideration in all infrastructure projects.