“In agreement with terms outlined in the Province’s Urban Connector program, the City of Yorkton is responsible for the remaining 25 per cent of the project cost.”
— Trent Mandzuk,
Director of Public Works
The City of Yorkton is set to embark on a major reconstruction of a portion of Highway 10 within the city, and of Mayhew Avenue.
“An application for the reconstruction of Highway 10 between Highway 9 and Mayhew Avenue was submitted to the Ministry in 2011,” said Trent Mandzuk, Director of Public Works with the City at the regular meeting of Yorkton Council Monday.
The province has approved the project and will fund up to a maximum of $1.9M (75 per cent) based on estimated costs of $2.5M and provincial interest classifications associated with Highway 10.
“In agreement with terms outlined in the Province’s Urban Connector program, the City of Yorkton is responsible for the remaining 25 per cent of the project cost,” said Mandzuk, adding “$640,000 was designated in the City’s 2015 capital budget for this purpose.”
Mandzuk noted “items eligible for funding under the Urban Connector program are assets directly attached to the roadway,’ so things such as municipal traffic lights are not covered.
The traffic lights at Highway 10 and Mayhew Avenue intersection are in poor condition and should be replaced as part of the total scope of work intended for the area, detailed a report circulated to Council Monday.
While undertaking the Highway 10 work, Mandzuk said it made sense to broaden the work, noting Mayhew Avenue from Highway 10 to Darlington Street is also in poor condition.
“This roadway is a major collector with a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of 55 and is currently amongst the City’s worst condition roadways,” he said, adding the section is “classified as a higher priority than residential areas … based on the higher traffic volumes that a collector roadway is subject to.”
The Highway 10 work will see the province invest $1,912,500, and the City $637,500.
The Mayhew work will cost $1,331,000, with the City drawing $431,000 from unused surfaced street funds in the 2014 budget, $400,000 from the surfaced streets budget set for 2015, and $500,000 from surfaced street reserves.
“The reconstruction on Mayhew Avenue would be extended as far north towards Darlington Avenue as funding allows,” said Mandzuk,
The two projects which have been awarded via tender to Acadia Paving Ltd. will take a different approach than previous street resurfacing in the City.
“Geotechnical test-hole logs indicate asphalt failure on Mayhew Avenue is the result of inadequate substructure (lack of granular material),” said Mandzuk.
“Unfortunately, this is a very expensive problem to overcome because it involves rebuilding the roadway from the bottom up.”
The work will see a cement surface laid down rather than an asphalt one.
“The Cement Association of Canada has compiled statistics to support that concrete pavement has an expected lifecycle in excess of 40 years from studies monitoring the asset’s performance over a 50 year period,” said Mandzuk.
“This is considerably longer than asphalt which typically has a lifecycle of 15 to 20 years dependent on traffic volumes and amount of heavy vehicle traffic.”
It has also been documented that concrete roadways have considerably less maintenance and rehabilitation requirements throughout the road’s lifecycle in comparison to asphalt with costs savings exceeding 20 per cent over its useful life, detailed the circulated report.
“Furthermore, energy costs associated with upkeep are one-third of that of asphalt,” said Mandzuk.
