Why are Chelsea's Roads so bad?
Net Debt
Chelsea Quebec Canada
2007 - $8.7 million
2008 - $10.1 million
2009 - $13.2 million
2010 - $13.9 million
2011 - $17.8 million
2012 - $ 24.2 million
WHY ARE CHELSEA'S ROADS SO BAD? 2013 NOT FINALIZED
… conversations with previous ward councillors. To see who said what visit:
Bureaucratic Facts
Public Works has a budget of approximately 20% of the total budget of approximately $10 million, i.e. $2 million. This covers:
- Public Works Staffing
- Materials (sand, gravel, salt, signs, vehicle operating costs, etc.)
- Contractors (snow removal, garbage pick-up, painting lines, lamp post lights, etc.)
- Updating unpaved roads (repairs, grading, recharging gravel, dust control)
Considered as municipal infrastructure costs, Public Works (the Municipality) borrows money for the repaving and rebuilding of roads and occasionally for recharging gravel in large projects for several roads. (It costs approximately $400,000 per kilometre to pave a road.):
- The amount of money borrowed is amortized over the length of the road's lifetime, e.g. 10 years or 15 years, depending on the type of rebuilding and resurfacing
- A borrowing bylaw is announced at Council meetings and by legally-required public postings. The next meeting passes the bylaw. Citizens can register opposition and if enough opposition is there, a referendum is held. Otherwise it passes and contracts are awarded.
Priorities for repairs are based on a range of factors, including, but not limited to the number of users, conditions and costs of repairs. Public Works establishes a recommended list, The Roads Committee makes changes if warranted and send these recommendations to Council for approval.
The condition of unpaved roads is dependant on the Municipality's ability to deploy staff and equipment during the fiscal year. A grading and ditching schedule is set but unforeseen events like washouts can impact the schedule.
Part of Chelsea's 2012 surplus budget includes but is not limited to money that was not spent on roads during the planned fiscal year for various reasons, primarily staffing problems. Weather and contractor availability were also factors.
The ability to repair or replace paved roads is dependant on how much debt we are willing to carry.
New developments now require roads to be paved by the developers to meet Municipal standards.
An analysis done about 4 years ago showed serious underfunding and some roads that could be be patched would soon need resurfacing.
Dangerous roads should be reported to the Municipality. The definition of dangerous is: structures that could compromise safety and need to be fixed urgently. Council has no say in this. Roads that are annoying, rough, hard on the suspension etc. are not part of the definition of dangerous roads.
Why the roads have ended up in such disrepair?
In order to keep taxes in line with inflation there has been consistent underfunding of roads projects since the 1980s.
This year $100,000 for Public Works projects (fixing roads) was put aside and then the department was not able to get around to doing it. The Director of Public Works was on leave, his replacement put out fires and some things didn't get done. Council only found out about this in August, too late for many repairs to take place during the fiscal year because there was not enough time to do so before the roads freeze.
The company that puts in guard rails is the only one that does this work and they didn't get to us this year.
Road budgets are always easy to cut. Previous councils cut Roads budget to avoid tax increases, shovelling the problem forward. The Roads budget could easily use an extra $500,000 annually but that would equal a 5% tax increase alone. One former councillor used to peg the number at one extra $1,000,000 a year.
After fixed costs and rising costs from the MRC for policing and garbage there is only a small part of the budget left to work with.
Logistical decisions made by technical staff often conflict with political objectives. In one vote councillors were split because their ward wasn't getting work done. The problem is that it is cheaper to do 5 roads next to each other than to do roads in 5 different parts of town.
During the 2005-2009 mandate, the roads committee tried to prioritize roads. Frequently the priority #1 items were huge jobs requiring lots of money and could not be done at one time. Jobs were done based on the available envelope of operating money or smaller amounts of borrowed money. Work was started on the Highway 105 in sections each year from Scott Road heading north. It is not known if this plan is ongoing for next year.
Fixing roads that are annoying, rough, hard on the suspension depends on how much noise a citizen makes and council's financial flexibility as well as serendipity (e.g. sudden influx of money from the province)
The gravel boxes and their removal throughout the Municipality is the result of cost-cutting measures.
The gravel yard where citizens used to be able to access gravel was cut off because of abuses by some people (like theft of equipment, dumping of garbage) and safety concerns with cars pulling into the Municipal yard when heavy equipment was being moved.
What Citizens can do about it
Report dangerous roads immediately to the Municipality. Dangerous roads are not defined as annoying, rough or hard on the suspension.
If you are concerned about roads in your area discuss it with your ward councillor and/or attend Municipal meetings where road budgets are being discussed and voted on. This year's budget is in December. Make sure your ward councillor knows what you want.
Pay attention to public postings from the Municipality usually found at municipal posting boards throughout Chelsea and in the local newspapers. A borrowing bylaw is announced at Council meetings and by legally-required public postings. The next meeting passes the bylaw. Citizens can register opposition and if enough opposition is there, a referendum is held. Otherwise it passes and contracts are awarded.
Pay attention to public postings from the Municipality usually found at municipal posting boards throughout Chelsea and in the local newspapers. A borrowing bylaw is announced at Council meetings and by legally-required public postings. The next meeting passes the bylaw. Citizens can register opposition and if enough opposition is there, a referendum is held. Otherwise it passes and contracts are awarded.
Ensure you ask your ward councillor if work is proceeding as promised early in the spring and that there are indeed staff at work on the matter, or if there are staff "at all" handling the matter.
Citizens must be patient and despite the old adage of not comparing yourself to others, if your road is in better shape than one of your neighbours, whining is not helpful. Roads must be fixed as priority allows. Think of your neighbour, not just yourself. At the same time however, your ward councillor needs to know that your road requires work.
The Municipality experimented with a new surface treatment on Kelly Road in Hollow Glen...it was one of those roads that needs continual maintenance. It turns out that it costs us about $0.50 per square meter of roadway to maintain it during the year. A treatment consisting of tar and small stones (seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadam ) costs ten times that but usually lasts at least 10 years. This means that if we treat a road this way, and it lasts at least ten years, that we come out ahead because we won't have spent all that time sending road crews to do repairs. If it lasts longer, then we actually save money. And the real benefit is that we have smoother roads, less dust, etc. This year we planned on doing a few more roads.
Environmental considerations
Environmental friendliness is hard to define. Paved roads are made of oil products that are not environmentally friendly but that prevent wear and tear on cars and tires which makes them last longer--and that's good. Dirt roads need to be continually topped up with dirt, get graded, then a layer of dust abatement gets sprayed on (that's an oil-based product). Bottom line, no clear winner… would need a scientific opinion.
Possible Solutions
This section will be added to as conversation between citizens and councillors (past and present) on the Facebook page evolve.
This whole concept of a user-friendly website for Chelseaites being a new idea, these are "my" opinions right now until some other people join and come up with some ideas:
- The most obvious solution is to separate roads from politics and a clear road plan is created that is not dependant on what mayor or councillor we may have and put into law.
- A clear map and timeline should be provided that will detail work to be done, and this will be followed through time, no matter what mayor we have. This must be put into law.
- The costs must be considered operating expenses not to be touched. The rest of it, such as recreation, public events etc. must work with the remaining budget, if any. The roads are the safety of the citizen. That and the fire-department. garbage pick-up, proper water and waste disposal are non-negotiable items to my mind. If there is not enough money to keep all of these vital services happy then there is something very wrong here.
- IMO, if citizens no longer have their gravel boxes filled, then at least supervised opening of the gravel yard should be implemented, obviously at a time when heavy equipment is not being moved.
- Mayor and Council require better pay. We cannot expect the enormous burden of work to be handled seriously with such dreadful renumeration.
Another's opinion:
- I would NOT advocate a full time position. Frankly I think more money on a few more staff and better paid staff might be an answer to make the Councillor’s job a little more sane and rational. There is a drain to the Fed’s and NCC and Gatineau that is absolutely real. There is better pay there and more benefits. So Chelsea is a training ground and then they move on.
If you have any ideas for solutions to obvious problems or any questions please visit:
Want to talk about municipal issues in your district? Join the FB group for your district at the addresses below:
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District 3: https://www.facebook.com/
District 4: https://www.facebook.com/
District 5: https://www.facebook.com/
District 6: https://www.facebook.com/
District 1: https://www.facebook.com/
District 2: https://www.facebook.com/
District 3: https://www.facebook.com/
District 4: https://www.facebook.com/
District 5: https://www.facebook.com/
District 6: https://www.facebook.com/
