THUNDER BAY – Filling in all the city’s potholes is going to take time.
City roads manager Ian Spoljarich addressed the issue at Wednesday’s Neebing ward meeting.
After months of complaints about potholes and deteriorating roads, Neebing ward coun. Greg Johnsen put together a road information session to address some of the concerns raised by his constituents.
The city’s hot asphalt plant has been open since May 7, said Spoljarich, and since that time it’s been all hands on deck.
But with over 2,000 kilometres of roadways and thousands of potholes to fill, it’s a long process, he said.
From the day the plant opens to the day it closes in October, city crews are out filling potholes.
Spoljarich said six crews were filling potholes on Wednesday.
“We go out, and we try to repair bigger holes first, the ones that are going to cause damage, the ones that are gonna create a hazard. So, we try to get those filled first. And then we go back. Sometimes, we will find a greater material to go get all the other cracks for smaller projects,” he said.
Not every pothole will be filled when a crew is working in any particular area, Spoljarich explained.
“Not every hole is filled,” he said. ” I kind of just said that we have to get to the bigger ones first. Sometimes they miss them. Don’t get me wrong, they can be missed.”
Road crews are also working on street sweeping, line painting, pitching and sidewalk repairs, he said, but asphalt repairs are the biggest focus.
One resident asked why the city has road crews out street sweeping when they can be filling in potholes?
Street sweeping the whole city takes about 3 months, he said, and pothole repairs work better if the street has already been swept.
“If you actually go sweep the road first… and then you’ll fill it, it actually sits better and adheres better with the asphalt,” Spoljarich said.
The resident then asked why council is putting money towards legacy projects like the indoor turf facility and not roads.
Director of engineering facilities, Mathew Miedema, said the city has fallen behind on its asset management, and roads are just one aspect. All the infrastructure the city owns is behind, including community centres, the police station, and firehalls.
Coun. Brian Hamilton, who attended the meeting as an observer, pointed out the city has an annual $30 million infrastructure gap and about a third of that is roads.
“That’s why you’re seeing such an aggressive growth strategy,” Hamilton said.
Roughly 30 years ago, the majority of the tax base came from commercial and industrial properties; however, today much of the tax base falls on residential,” Hamilton said.
Furthermore, he said the city is focused on 20 per cent capital spending for new projects and 80 per cent on renewal of existing assets, which still present economic challenges without new growth revenue.
“In my view, my vote went to the future, Johnsen said. “I don’t have kids, but my girlfriend does. And I really want to see them, for as long as I live, in this city. And maybe an indoor turf facility will keep them there. We all probably have friends and relatives up in Calgary or in Toronto, and they took off. Maybe things like the community auditorium or facilities like indoor turf will allow people to see the vision of 10, 20, 50 years later that they exist in Thunder Bay.”
The city still needs to balance the challenges of the day, but that doesn’t mean the city takes their eyes off the future, Johnsen said. “We still have a duty.”
