Stephen Vance, Staff
At their June 6 meeting, Meaford’s council approved a plan that will begin to tackle municipal bridge infrastructure needs in the coming years.
The plan approved by council directs staff to develop the preliminary draft of the 2017 budget to include a recommended increase in bridge funding from the current $60,000 annually to $360,000. The plan also directs staff to include a one percent dedicated tax rate increase to support additional bridge funding, and to draft a bylaw establishing a separate reserve fund for bridge rehabilitation, reconstruction, and major maintenance projects.
Last month council was advised that the municipality is facing more than $30 million in costs to rehabilitate the municipal bridge infrastructure in the next ten years.
Nearly $6 million of the required bridge infrastructure work was deemed “urgent“by consultants Brian Wickenheiser of Ainley Group, and Derek Ali of DFA Infrastructure, who presented an update on the state of themunicipal bridge infrastructure to council.
The report presented by the consultants identified strategies for tackling the bridge infrastructure problem, which included the closure of up to nine of the 80 bridges in the municipality, debt financing, and potentially significant tax increases in the coming years.
Meaford Treasurer Darcy Chapman told council that adopting the plan will “ensure that a financial program gets established and would provide a funding envelope of more than $1 million per year by 2021. This will provide a stable base of funding, allow the municipality time to understand all of the corporate asset needs, establish an overall funding plan and begin to use debt effectively. More importantly, this medium–term solution will prove flexibility to allow future plan changes once more is known regarding the provincial and federal governments‘ development of stable core infrastructure funding programs,” advised Chapman.
According to the consultants, who presented their report to council in May, the strategy recommended would see the municipality spend nearly $80 million on bridges over the next 51 years, an average of $1.5 million per year.Depending how the municipality chooses to finance the bridge work, municipal debt or property taxes will need to increase significantly, according to the report.
While the numbers are staggering, Chapman reminded council that most municipalities are facing similar infrastructure challenges, though with regard to bridges, Meaford has more challenges than most.
“We are unlike a lot of small municipalities because we unfortunately have a very large watershed that runs through our municipality, it pretty much goes from the east all the way to the west, and that’s why we have 80 (bridge) structures in a compact area. Most municipalities don’t have nearly as many,” Chapman advised.
Councillor Shirley Keaveney asked Chapman if the new strategy for rehabilitating the bridge infrastructure would have an impact on the ability to continue with road improvement projects.
“In the past two years our focus has been on roads, we made a commitment to that, and we’ve been doing a substantial amount of work on roads. Are we going to be able to continue to do that along with what we’re going to have to dedicate now to bridges?” asked Keaveney.
“Ultimately of course we can do it because it’s simply a matter of money. It’s really about the political will of this council and future councils to stay the course to deal with infrastructure,” suggested Chapman.
Keaveney also requested an opportunity for members of council to be given a tour of some of the bridges in the municipality for a first hand look at their locations and condition.
