The Town of Ottawa is acquiring problems discovering contractors to have out lengthy-long lasting sidewalk repairs, leaving town crews to patch gaps and cracks with asphalt.
“We have experienced difficulties in the previous couple many years with regards to acquiring contracted expert services to do some of these concrete repairs,” Quentin Levesque, the city’s director of roads and parking providers, told councillors on Ottawa’s transportation committee Wednesday.
“What we’ve been going through is a pretty warm construction market place and labour industry, which has posed challenges with regards to attracting these contractors and distributors to undertake this get the job done, just specified that the scale and the scope of the function is incredibly compact in comparison to a ton of the more substantial building projects that we have underway within the metropolis.”
Levesque was talking in response to an inquiry submitted by Coun. Mathieu Fleury in April.
In it, Fleury complained that “this repair solution of sidewalk asphalt patches carries on to elevate difficulties of deficiency of metropolis pleasure and also degradation of infrastructure sidewalks across our town.”
Fleury asked what wants to be done to make certain broken sidewalk panels are replaced with concrete as an alternative of patched with asphalt, and what actions council would want to consider to enact a ban on asphalt fixes, the most economical and most straightforward repair method accessible.
Asphalt ban not encouraged
Levesque counselled in opposition to this sort of a drastic action, noting the city is expected by the province to deal with Course A hazards such as cracks of two centimetres or far more in 14 days, even though the city’s personal normal for repair is 7 times.
Banning the use of asphalt for momentary repairs would slow that response, Levesque warned.
Even so, he agreed that his division has to get a superior manage on the perform that is wanted to permanently repair the city’s vast network of sidewalks.
“Undoubtedly we have to have to make some improvements in that region to get a improved feeling on, Alright, how numerous of those people asphalt repairs are currently out there that will need to be replaced with concrete?” he informed the committee.
Of the many sidewalk repair procedures available, patching with asphalt is by much the lowest priced and easiest, but it’s also “a last vacation resort and temporary evaluate to tackle the hazard till a complete concrete panel substitute can be accomplished,” in accordance to the written response to Fleury’s inquiry.
Department underneath finances
In the spring of 2021 on your own, Levesque’s section executed 905 such patch work. Fleury famous that by relying on that method, the division essentially underspent on sidewalk repairs to the tune of about $1 million.
“It seems strange, but in this circumstance, to not invest the comprehensive sum budgeted shows even a even larger challenge than what we are viewing on the floor correct now. It’s showing that you will find a decay in our infrastructure that we are not upkeeping,” he mentioned.
The city’s public performs department has an annual budget of $3.5 million for “different concrete repairs.”
In get to make sidewalk repairs extra interesting to contractors, Levesque instructed the committee his section is now “packaging” work opportunities together with more substantial infrastructure jobs. He explained the city is near to tendering individuals contracts.
Levesque’s department is also embarking on a survey of all 2,135 kilometres of sidewalk in Ottawa to compile a entire checklist of required repairs. They are anticipated to end later this year, and will report to council in 2023.
“So that we can discover not only what that number [of repairs] is, but identify the suitable spending plan that would be required as perfectly as the timeline in purchase to progress to do the replacement in concrete,” Levesque reported.
