So Which Potholes Get Fixed First? CRERAR
At this time of year, when snow still covers many of our roadways, it’s hard to determine which streets need fixing the most.
But in a month or so, as temperatures rise, traversing many of our roads will be much like a roller-coaster ride, bumping, veering to miss potholes, cursing and swearing when we hit one. Who decides which roads need rebuilding or resurfacing when so many of them are in such bad shape?
A few years ago I read about the approach Los Angeles takes to road maintenance. First, every road in the city is scrutinized. The city then applies a technique known as dashboarding to a map of all the city’s streets, assigning the colour green to roads that require no immediate attention, orange to roads that are beginning to show signs of aging, and red to roads requiring immediate attention. While it’s unlikely that all red roads will be fixed in a single year, the city at least has a playbook they can follow and plan around.
Does Ottawa take a similar analytical approach to road maintenance or do councilors randomly decide which roads to fix? It appears as if the latter is Ottawa’s approach since much of the work done annually occurs on the same roads, for example, portions of Bank Street south of Riverside Drive.
My local councilor has an interesting approach to allocating road maintenance. A couple of years ago he decided it was time to resurface Mitch Owens Road (aka RR8) between Bank Street and Boundary Road, a distance of 12 km. The resurfacing took place over a number of years with the final phase being a three-minute drive from Boundary Road westward along Mitch Owens.
Had this phase been completed along with the previous phase, another road could have been attended to in the same period, and an additional summer of traffic disruption along Mitch Owens could have been avoided.
Howard Crerar is a project manager and has worked in the software industry for three decades.
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The last paragraph identifies a significant difference in approach between jurisdictions.
In Ottawa, it is clear that the inconvenience inflicted on the local community is so low on the list as to be irrelevant. The major roadworks are ‘designed’ around annual budget constraints. Not enough money is allocated in the budget, period. Something that former Mayor Jim Watson acknowledged in one his far too many budget speeches. The funds that are in the budget are spread over a large number of projects, to demonstrate to as many communities as practicable that the city is doing something. Instead of starting and finishing a roadway all in one construction season, the city starts and finishes parts of roadways in many locations. The following year they start and finish another part of the roadway. And so on. This extends the impact on the community of the disruption to traffic flow, of the disruption to the quiet enjoyment of their homes. And the city doesn’t care.
In contrast, in towns and cities in Germany, an entire stretch of roadway is addressed in as short a period of time as possible. The surface is ground down, followed by the surface preparation team, followed by the paving team. All within eye sight of each other. Start to finish in as short a period of time as possible. Why? Because in Germany, local, state and federal governments have at least a modicum of respect for the people.
As for how the decisions regarding where and when get made in Ottawa. It starts with the under-funded budget. Councillors seek input from the communities in their wards, usually by consulting the local community association. In Centrepointe, we highlighted a kilometre-ish long stretch of roadway that had more patches than original material. Every year, for eight years. In the ninth year it was resurfaced. A month after the resurfacing was completed, a crew came in and repaired the access point for the underground conduit (what was once referred to as a manhole). Patched up with a couple of square metres of subgrade asphalt cold packed into the fresh, high grade asphalt. The crew couldn’t even be bothered to seal the joints. Any guesses on where the potholes are developing?
Prior to the upgrade of Mitch Owens between Boundary Road and Bank Street, another section of Mitch Owens Road, between Bank Street and Limebank Road, was repaved except for a small section, roughly 200 meters long. This 200-meeter segment was left unfinished for 2 to 3 years but was, of course, repaved prior to the next municipal election. But seriously, 200 meters had to wait 3 years to be addressed?!