Nanaimo's roads are deteriorating faster than City crews can repair them, leading to a request from the public works department for more money. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Alex Rawnsley

WEAR AND TEAR

‘We’re not spending enough on our roads:’ increased repair funding pitched during annual budget talks

Nov 3, 2021 | 4:17 PM

NANAIMO — Local roads are falling apart quicker than crews can repair them, according to those in charge of maintaining them.

City councillors heard a request for more of an investment in road repair, rehabilitation and replacement as part of their annual budget deliberations. on Wednesday, Nov. 3.

John Elliot, director of public works, said during ongoing road maintenance isn’t keeping up with the natural deterioration of local streets.

“We’re not spending enough on our roads,” Elliot said. “We are doing preventative maintenance which is at a lower cost and getting more longevity out of the roads, but this is something we’re going to have to look at in the future.”

A report done for Council three years ago mapped city streets and provided a rough timeline on replacement needs.

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Information from the report helps inform decision making, but Elliot said the issue is snowballing.

“Part of it is leaving a road that is not in very good condition, then not addressing that. We have a budget that we have for road rehab and maintenance and we’ve identified we’re not spending quite enough money on that.”

Traffic flow & city efficiencies
As part of the 2022 planning for the engineering and public works department, director of engineering Poul Rosen said his department is working to design a more centralized solution for Nanaimo’s traffic flow issues.

Using increasingly popular camera technology at intersections allows the City to make on-the-fly adjustments to accommodate traffic patterns.

“A lot of communities do have these and they allow the community to optimize traffic flow and patterns in real time, it allows us to extract more efficiency out of the transportation network,” Rosen said.

The new technology, installed at a number of locations throughout Nanaimo, use cameras to detect when cars approach an intersection.

It replaces in-ground induction loops which tend to fail as they age.

No decision was made on how to allocate money to road rehabilitation projets or traffic flows, which fall under engineering and public works.

The department accounts for roughly 25 per cent of the City’s overall budget.

Council opened budget discussions for 2022 with a base increase of 3.4 per cent to maintain current levels of service. Property taxes rose three per cent in 2021.

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alex@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @alexrawnsley