Nobody likes potholes. Not only can they ruin an otherwise pleasant drive, they can damage your vehicle, and bring frustration to a perfectly good day. Potholes just aren’t fun, and motorists understandably loathe them.
Over the summer I have seen many Meaford residents complain on social media about the state of some of the roads in this municipality. While those frustrations are almost always warranted, the reality is that, with hundreds of kilometres of roads within this municipality, they can’t all be fixed at once, and sometimes there are reasons that a road in dire need of surface repair might still be years away from rehabilitation.
While the condition of road surfaces can be painfully obvious, below that asphalt there are pipes in the ground in the urban area of the municipality, and at times, as is the case currently with the much-complained-about Aiken Street which leads to our wastewater treatment plant, road resurfacing can be delayed in order to combine the project with replacement of water and wastewater infrastructure below the road surface.
Understandably motorists who travel Aiken Street with regularity are frustrated, and though they no doubt understand the logic for delaying the resurfacing of the street in order to combine it with the pipe infrastructure project, it doesn’t make their daily drive any better.
It can be easy to forget that this municipality has more than 400 kilometres of municipally maintained roads, and the vast majority are in pretty good shape, but the handful of roads in poor condition cast a huge shadow over the reality that most of our roads provide a smooth ride for motorists. Along with 400 kilometres of roads to maintain, this municipality also has 25 kilometres of sidewalks, as well as some 80 bridge structures to maintain, and it all costs money, lots of money, and so it can take time in order to address a problem road.
Meaford’s 2024 budgets include more than $3.2 million for road and bridge repair and rehabilitation, nearly half of which is dedicated toward roads projects.
If the municipality were to rehabilitate roughly 15 kilometres of road each year (in 2023, 16 kilometres of road repair and resurfacing was planned), it would take more than 26 years to rehabilitate every road in the municipality, and after 26 years, the roads that had been rehabilitated first would be in very poor condition, as some are today.
Even the cheapest hard-surface (tar and chip) costs $300,000 to $400,000 per kilometre to resurface a road, and the life-span is just six or seven years. Asphalt, as we see in the urban area of the municipality, costs double that, though it has a 20-year life span. If this municipality were to be able to wave a magic wand and resurface all 400 kilometres of our roads at once, it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Road maintenance is an endless cycle, and if municipalities don’t keep on top of it, and if they don’t tuck funds away for future road repairs and resurfacing, the problems can mount, and we have all seen how that plays out. Much of our major infrastructure, from roads to bridges to the pipes in the ground, was built 75 to 100 years ago, and while for decades municipalities and other levels of government were busy building and expanding upon our core infrastructure, not much thought seems to have been put into future maintenance and replacement. Ideally, municipalities would have established a fund for every piece of infrastructure built, every road, every bridge, every pipe in the ground, that would see annual contributions so that 50 years later, when a full replacement or rehabilitation was required, the funding, or at least most of it, would already been in place. That didn’t happen of course, and today, governments are burdened with, and sometimes overwhelmed by, the enormous costs to rehabilitate decades-old infrastructure.
Many municipalities, including Meaford, have been working to correct that, and to actually focus on building reserves for future infrastructure needs. Nearly a decade ago, Meaford started to begin each budget season with a 2.5 percent increase dedicated to infrastructure. One percent for roads, one percent for bridges, and a half percent for municipal facilities.
Over the past decade this municipality has both spent more and also saved more for the future when it comes to infrastructure than we have seen in decades, but pothole-filled roads still exist, and they rightly frustrate motorists.
While we indeed have a handful of roads that are in poor condition, we must also acknowledge that this municipality has spent more and more on core infrastructure over the past decade.
As Councillor Steve Bartley has noted many times in the council chamber in recent years, this Municipality spends more on infrastructure than any other municipality in the county, and has done so for several years. But if ratepayers want more to be spent, and if they are willing to pay for it, council needs to hear that loud and clear as budget season approaches.
You might hear me grumble when council gets focused on flowers or pressed concrete to beautify things, but you will never hear me complain about council wanting to spend more money on infrastructure.
From my perspective, a municipality can never dedicate enough funds toward infrastructure needs, so when residents suggest that more should be spent on roads, I fully agree. But can ratepayers afford more? Are ratepayers willing to reduce spending on municipal services elsewhere in order to increase funding for roads? How much is enough to spend annually on road rehabilitation? Should a road in poor condition be resurfaced now, when it is slated to be torn up to replace underground water and wastewater infrastructure two years from now, or should ratepayers tolerate such a road, even for a couple of years, in order to allow both issues to be tackled at the same time, which it should be noted also lessens the overall cost?
The questions are many, and the answers can be complex.
The 2025 budget season is fast approaching, and for those who feel that more municipal funds should be spent on road rehabilitation, I strongly encourage you to get involved in the budget process, and to let council know your position. If council hears from enough ratepayers that more of a focus, and by extension, more funds should be spent on road rehabilitation, that will certainly help guide some of their decisions.
Be forewarned however, as increasing the amount of money spent on roads will either mean spending less on other municipal services, or it will mean a larger property tax increase in 2025; it is a fine balancing act, and in the world of municipal governance, you can’t spend more in one area without spending less elsewhere, or asking the ratepayers to fork over even more of their hard-earned money.
Could the Municipality of Meaford do a better job of maintaining roads in order to minimize the bumpy rides? Certainly, as could every municipality, but it ultimately comes down to money, and the limits of ratepayers’ wallets.
To report an issue on a municipal road, you can complete a Roads Inquiry Form at https://form.foreaction.cloud/submit/meaford
