The City of Yorkton has an ambitious plan to rebuild Broadway. The project, with an estimated cost of $45 million, would see the entire street rebuilt from Highway 10 to Highway 9, with the focus being on repairing old and damaged infrastructure under the street. This would be the largest capital project ever undertaken by the city of Yorkton. YBID hosted a meeting to allow business owners located on Broadway to see the current state of the plan and have their concerns addressed.
The issue is one of old infrastructure. Trent Mandzuk, Director of Public Works, explains that the pipes running under Broadway are old and damaged, with some being there for over 100 years. With the aging infrastructure, there is more of a risk of damage, pipe breaks and flooding, noting that water main breaks have been steadily increasing over the past ten years. There is also currently heavy root infiltration in the sewer system and the storm sewer catch basins are in poor condition. As well, the old infrastructure wasn't designed to meet the needs of a growing city. He says the city needs to be proactive about getting on top of its infrastructure for the sake of the city today and into the future.
Money will determine the scope of the project, explains Mayor Bob Maloney, as it is not something the city can fund on their own. The current plan is to get funding from the federal and provincial governments, splitting it three ways. If that funding doesn't go through, the city will look at other funding options and scale back the scope of the project, or execute it in a piecemeal fashion as funding is discovered.
Even quick as possible a project of this scope will take some time. Mandzuk explains that the plan will work on a block-by-block basis, with each block taking one to two months to completely dig up Broadway and do the necessary work. At that rate, keeping construction to the summer months, the completed project will still take approximately three years to be fully complete.
Maloney notes that if funding isn't forthcoming from the federal and provincial levels, what is intended to take three years could be stretched to as many as ten, as the city would not be able to afford to do everything at once.
Business owners showed reluctance about going forward with the project, with concerns about cost and the amount of time the plan would take. Some questioned the need to go forward with the plan at all, but Mandzuk says there is too much of a risk to allow the pipes under Broadway to continue to decay.
Maloney says that they understand any reluctance from the business community. He says people invest everything into their business, and the threats of interruption or increased costs are worrying. They want to minimize the pain of the project, Maloney says and work with businesses to find ways to ensure any interruption is minimal. That is part of the reason why they are meeting with businesses now, while the project is still in the very early stages, in order to work with businesses and find ways to minimize the impact the project will have.
While the concerns of business are noted, the project will go forward, in whatever form it eventually takes, Mandzuk says, because the state of the street below Broadway is dire enough that action needs to be taken as soon as possible.
Maloney says that council is being forward-looking with this plan, because it will mean that the infrastructure under Broadway will be able to serve well into the future.
"This is an expensive project, but it is a project that will serve the community well for the next 75 years," Maloney says.
If the city can go ahead with the plan, the project will be tendered in 2015. The city invites anyone with concerns about the Broadway Reconstruction Project to visit yorkton.ca and contact Public Works.
