The City of Yorkton will embark on a resurfacing of Broadway Street, a project which will take two years to complete.
The Yorkton Council approved a tender for the work at its regular meeting Monday.
The tender for the project will go to Fedorowich Construction Ltd. at a total of $1,412,857. That cost will be split over two years.
The project is being undertaken “to address Broadway’s poor pavement condition and to attempt to reduce project cost via economies of scale” noted materials circulated at Monday’s meeting.
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.
A drive down our City’s main street certainly confirms that Broadway’s surface is in a serious state of disrepair, with your vehicle proclaiming the situation with clunks every time a tire rolls into a hole in the asphalt, or over a repaired area.
But the sad reality the project might also be called the proverbial situation of putting some lipstick on a pig.
The problem with the situation is that while new asphalt will temporarily address the rough ride down Broadway, it is very much lipstick without addressing massive concerns hidden underneath – the pig that is Broadway Street.
Trent Mandzuk Director of Public Works, with the City explained Monday 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.
Of course a complete refurbishing of the project has a huge price tag attached.
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.
It is unfortunate, although not surprising, no help came from the federal government which no doubt realizes the Yorkton situation is not unique and it would be billions of dollars to even start addressing street renewals in small cities across the country.
And we know no help is coming anytime soon from the Saskatchewan government which off-loaded funding cuts to municipalities in 2017 to help balance its budget. When it comes to street investment from the provincial level it is largely tied up in the network of over and underpasses around Regina, not in smaller cities such as Regina.
So Yorkton Council were left with a decision, a bit of make-up to make things better short term, while crossing their fingers the aging infrastructure holds a few more years.
“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, he noted.
