OLDS — Nearly one-third of roads in Olds (28.3 per cent) require “corrective action” this year, especially in collector and local roadways, Infrastructure director Adrian Pedro says.
No municipality can afford to fix nearly one-third of its road infrastructure, he said, but the Town of Olds can keep working away at it, by spending $1.6 million each year for 10 years on roadway needs assessment.
A backlog of 10 to 25 per cent is considered to be acceptable.
Pedro made those statements during a presentation to town council on Jan. 13.
He said, “10 per cent per cent is the benchmark for a smoothly running pavement rehabilitation system, so we do have some work to do.”
“The arterials were relatively good condition. So not a bad assessment, but there is work to be done.”
Coun. Darren Wilson asked what “corrective action” means.
“Is that everything from simply pothole repair to spray patching to rip up and repave, or is it the worst case of corrective action, meaning we ought to rip up and repave,” he asked.
“It would cover everything from not necessarily potholes, but everything outside of that,” Pedro said.
“So whether it's a micro-surfacing treatment, mill-and-pave or larger scale would be full-scale replacement.
“What we're seeing in the data -- it's not necessarily shown on these slides -- but the majority of our rehabilitation needs fall into the mill-and-pave category.
“So that's actually positive, because what that means is that largely the base of our pavement of our roads is in relatively good condition.”
Pedro said if the Town of Olds continues to spend $1.6 million on the assessment project, in 10 years roads in the community could be down to a four per cent deficiency rate, “which is fantastic.”
