Summer road repairs are the bane of many a motorist, and Airdrie has seen its fair share of traffic delays and road closures as a result of roadwork this year. But according to Bob Neale, team leader of Engineering Services with the City of Airdrie, all of that is almost at an end.
“We’re substantially complete on all our projects, which means they’re at the 90 to 95 per cent mark. Some of the work that falls into the five to 10 per cent category is things like landscaping, grass seeding and line painting,” Neale said.
“They probably won’t be disruptive at all (to motorists). Possibly an occasional lane closure, but that usually will occur in off peak hours.”
Although it may sometimes appear which road gets worked on next is quite random, the City actually has a process for prioritizing this work.
“With the rehabilitation program, which is probably what you were seeing on East Lake Boulevard and Main Street, we have a pavement management system that has quantified and qualified all of the roadwork within the City of Airdrie,” Neale said.
“Within the criteria there are thresholds. Once that threshold is met for a particular road, that it needs treatment, then we prioritize it and then program the work into our budget for the following year.”
Neale said the projects for next year have already been identified waiting for approval in the 2016 City budget. The budget development process is underway and a draft budget is slated to come before council at a yet to be determined date.
Repairing old roads is just part of the picture, however. New construction is also something the engineering department deals with. The cost to complete all of the work required in 2015 was in the region of $20 to $25 million, according to Neale.
“Our strategies are based on the Transportation Master Plan so we know where the staged improvements will be located and then they are prioritized based on where growth is occurring in the city,” he said.
Engineering Services is responsible for the major roadwork in the city while Public Works (PW) takes care of smaller repairs.
“Our PW roads folks do minor maintenance with smaller budgets,” Neale said. “They’re going into the subdivisions and correcting trip hazards and doing pothole repair, that kind of thing.”
Like it or not, weather does dictate that most of the roadwork has to take place in the summer months.
“We’re not starting anything significant at the moment because weather might shut it down completely,” Neale said. “We’re on borrowed time right now.”
