City council is seeking a strategy to address the growing infrastructure deficit in the city's roads, water and sewer lines.
Council's finance and audit committee will be examining options to fund the repaving of roads and installation of new pipe, following a motion by council on Monday.
"We know the gap certainly exists, in the order of $7.5 million[per year], between what we should be investing and what we are investing," Mayor Dan Rogers said. "The question is how to fund it."
Rogers said municipalities across the country are struggling with aging infrastructure
The issue arose last Wednesday, when council approved the $3.8 million road maintenance budget and again on Monday when the $3.5 million road paving budget received council's nod of approval.
"I understand it would take about four years [at the current rate] to catch up on our paving," coun. Dave Wilbur said.
City superintendent of operations Bill Gaal confirmed Wilbur's statement.
City staff are working to make the most of the budget council approves each year, city transportation manager Al Clark said.
"It's a really tough thing, because each year we deal with increases in materials like asphalt. We're given the same amount of money, but we have to try and make it go further," Clark said. "We're not falling further behind, but we're not getting ahead either."
The paving budget is up approximately $100,000 from last year.
"We can have all the bells and whistles with civic facilities, but if we don't have the roads to get there it doesn't matter," coun. Brian Skakun said. "It's a never-ending story, Prince George and potholes. But I know that at some point we're going to have to increase our road rehabilitation budget."
Last year, city crews patched 21,346 potholes --including 3,485 temporary cold patches. In addition, crews patched or sealed almost 22 km of cracks in city pavement.
Crews overlaid 4,251 square metres of damaged streets.
"We've had our patch trucks out already [this year], when it warmed up for a couple days," Clark said.
Slated for paving this year are sections of PG Pulp Mill Road, Old Summit Lake Road, Ospika Boulevard, Continental Way, Domano Boulevard, Noranda Road, Cranbrook Hill Road, Johnson Street, Hart Frontage Road and Cowart Road.
A detailed analysis of the city's road and sewer network is underway. City asset manager Frank Blues, who is overseeing the study, was not available for comment as of press time.
