Yorkton Council approved a tender at its regular meeting Monday which sets in motion a two-year project to resurface Broadway Street.
The street is actually in need of a complete refurbishing, but that is beyond the City’s finances, explained Trent Mandzuk Director of Public Works, with the City.
Broadway Street is Yorkton’s largest arterial corridor linking Provincial Highway #9, #10, #16 and #52 through the City’s downtown business district. It also houses some of the City’s largest and oldest (75-plus years) underground infrastructure, explained Mandzuk.
“In recent years the City’s Asset Management Plan identified Broadway infrastructure as the most critical and in the poorest condition of all City assets,” he told Council.
Throughout the downtown corridor the frequency of water-main breaks is increasing, sanitary lines have collapsed, storm piping is undersized and the asphalt surface of the roadway has reached the end of its design life, said Mandzuk.
“In 2014, an estimate for a total reconstruction of Broadway Street identified that a staggering budget of $52 million would be required,” he said, adding to put that in perspective the City could invest its entire capital budget for the next 15-years “and not have it done.”
In January of 2015, an application was submitted by the City to the Building Canada Fund (BCF) in hopes of receiving provincial and federal funding for the project. No funding was granted.
“Since the submission of the BCF grant application, pavement condition on Broadway continues to deteriorate,” said Mandzuk.
“Based on our asset management plan, Broadway is the top priority roadway requiring renewal taking into consideration factors such as pavement condition index, traffic counts and roadway classification,” related his report.
“To address Broadway’s poor pavement condition and to attempt to reduce project cost via economies of scale, a two-year pavement renewal program has been proposed for the entire corridor. In 2018, the roadway surface along Broadway Street between Dalebrooke and CN tracks (Phase 1) will be removed and a new asphalt overlay will be installed. The remaining portion of Broadway between CN tracks and Hwy # 9 (Phase 2) will be completed in 2019.”
“It is important to recognize that this project will not address improvements to existing underground infrastructure,” added Mandzuk.
“The potential exists for underground utilities to fail at any time once the roadway has been paved. It is these types of difficult decisions that municipalities must learn to accept as the huge funding requirements for total reconstruction projects are simply not feasible on an ongoing basis,” detailed the report.
Tenders for Broadway Street paving were recently posted on Sask-Tenders. Two bids were received for the project and based on the evaluation of the submissions, both companies were compliant with the requirements of the solicitation.
It was recommended that the award of the project would go to Fedorowich Construction Ltd. at a total of $1,412,857.
Funding for Phase 1 of the project was comprised of $568,000 from the 2018 capital budget and $480,000 from 2017 roadway operations rolled over from last year.
Council was unanimous in accepting the recommendation.
